


fall into your sunlight

by shoulderbladesarewings



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angels, Angst, Demons, Hospitals, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sexual Content, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-11-19
Packaged: 2018-03-25 20:22:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 27,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3823528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shoulderbladesarewings/pseuds/shoulderbladesarewings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis and Zayn are demons. Liam's an angel who's not allowed to associate with them. Harry's sick, and Louis still loves him.</p><p>Also there's a playlist http://8tracks.com/kiki-d/fall-into-your-sunlight</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

In retrospect, the foundations of Louis and Zayn’s friendship are a little dark. Zayn had been dead for a few years before he found Louis, alone, orphaned, and shivering in an empty carriage of a train carrying crates to a factory in the middle of nowhere.

   Zayn maintains to this day that he never meant to blow up the entire train. You start one fire, it hits a gas leak, and the next thing you know a fire eleven feet tall burns down an entire patch of forest the railway was passing through. _It could have been worse,_ he’ll say, shrugging. _The only people killed were you and the driver._

   _A driver who probably had a wife and kids at home,_ Louis will tease, elbowing him playfully in the ribs. _Who might have cured cancer in a couple of years. Who probably gave to charity, adopted stray cats, coached football at the local school…_

Zayn will simply roll his eyes. Neither of them really care about the driver. Demons don’t give a damn about humans.

   Which is the light at the core of Zayn’s actions that day. He did them for Louis, because he wanted a friend and he could see that life would never give Louis what he could. Yes, one school of thought would call his actions murder, but Louis thinks of them more of as adoption. Flying him from one life into another. It wasn’t even painful because the fire spread so fast. And now he gets to be young, beautiful and awesome forever.

   Zayn and Louis aren’t demons because they were evil when they were alive. It has to do with the way you die. Zayn killed himself when he was eighteen, swallowing his entire medicine cabinet the day he left school out of fear of what was to come. Louis too died violently and purposely, and so he was designated demon as well.

   The angels are different. They died of illness; natural disasters; things that God intended, and so he gave them halos and wings as compensation for their loss. Louis and Zayn and all others of their ilk who were not expressly killed by his hand are not considered worthy of redemption and so they hate him; hate the angels; hate everyone and everything except each other.

   But Zayn’s always been far softer than Louis. So Louis isn’t particularly surprised when, one day, he comes back from checking up on his little sisters (they were adopted by his aunt but she refused to take him because he was too old) to find Zayn floating aimlessly above a skyscraper, staring up at the sky and the border between the demons’ and the angels’ domain.

   Louis finds the spot he’s gazing at – and understands. Liam’s on patrol, his stride purposeful, scouting out souls to escort up to Heaven.

   ‘Isn’t he amazing?’ Zayn breathes.

   Louis pats his shoulder uncertainly. ‘Whatever you say, mate.’

   Just then, Liam looks directly down and spots them. After glancing over his shoulder he swoops down to meet them, stopped only by the thin, metal-like layer of transparent force that separates their worlds. It isn’t soundproof though. ‘Hey.’

   ‘Hey,’ Zayn mumbles, blushing.

   Liam smiles, a little sadly, kisses his index finger, and presses it to the glass above Zayn’s mouth. ‘Be happy, beautiful.’

   Louis snorts, part fond exasperation and part genuine disgust, then pointedly presses his lips to Zayn’s cheek. ‘I’ll leave you lovebirds to it. Any complaints? No?’

   Zayn gives him a gentle push. ‘Bye, Lou.’

   A little hurt, Louis darts away.

   Liam and Zayn have been on awkwardly-flirting terms since even before Louis was killed. It all started, Zayn says, when he died. Liam had been watching as he took the pills, and when Zayn was on the verge of dying he knelt beside him in the bathroom, surrounded by broken glass from where he’d put his fist through the mirror, and sang to him as he passed to the other side. Angels are allowed across the border to perform these kinds of acts from time to time, and now whenever Liam is he’ll stop by wherever Louis and Zayn are that day and the two of them will talk for hours, holding hands but never going further. As an angel, Liam’s under an oath of purity, which if broken would get him cast out of Heaven. Fallen angels are not the same as demons. Their skin can’t adjust to the atmosphere and so they burn in blinding pain for the rest of eternity, barrelling around the sky and slowly going insane. Zayn’s seen it, and he would never ask that of Liam. Louis tells him time and time again to chase after someone within in his reach, but he just shakes his head and says he doesn’t understand.

   He’s right about that, at least.

   Left alone, Louis does what he usually does with Zayn: wanders. He surfs the waves of the Pacific with just his feet as a board; whips through a wedding to rip a scrap off the bride’s dress and a rose from her bouquet; finds an empty island off the coast of Greece and lies in the grass to admire the stars.

   It’s a good life, and he’s grateful to Zayn for giving it to him. But it’s lonely. Demons tend to keep to themselves out of mistrust, bitterness and self-hatred, and so Zayn’s really all he has for company. Louis wants someone to look at him like people used to – like he was special, like they wanted him.

   ‘Lou?’

   He opens his eyes, although he hadn’t even realised they’d drifted shut. Zayn’s hovering above him, looking flushed and a little worried. ‘Good time with Liam?’

   He shrugs, clearly trying to play it cool. ‘It was OK.’ He drifts down to lie beside him, their fingers brushing among the strands of grass.

   It’s very dark now, so Louis breathes a small curl of flame into the air. He’s always been a little afraid of the dark. ‘You two set a date yet?’

   ‘Hey,’ Zayn reprimands, poking him in the side. ‘We’re not together. You know it’s not allowed. We’re just friends.’

   ‘Friends who are embarrassingly obviously in love with each other.’

   ‘Shut _up.’_

   Louis senses he’s upsetting him beyond near teasing, and he’s his best friend – all he has – so he stops pushing.

   ‘What did you do today?’ Zayn asks after a while.

   ‘Not much. I got you this.’

   He hands him the rose, wilted now, and Zayn looks at him like he’s handed him a perfectly formed star. When Louis gives him things, it isn’t about the objects themselves. It’s about the story. He’s got a collection of scrap metal, dead flowers, broken pieces and locks of hair Louis’s brought him from around the world, and whenever he hands them over he always asks the same question: ‘Where did you get this?’

   ‘At a wedding. There were orchids and lilies as well but I figure love’s more important than beauty and death.’

   He chuckles. ‘Pretty bride?’

   ‘Mmm. She had her hair all clipped up on top of her head but in that way that left some strands tumbling down around her shoulders. Blonde. And she had these lovely liquid brown eyes –’

   ‘Like Liam,’ Zayn murmurs.

   ‘Like Liam,’ Louis agrees, although inside he’s thinking _Good grief, this boy is gone._ ‘The groom wasn’t up to much, but they looked sweet together. And one of the waiters had his hand up a bridesmaid’s skirt.’

   ‘Liam says he would have wanted to get married,’ Zayn says dreamily. ‘He would have worn white, with gold cufflinks.’

   ‘Thought about it a lot, has he?’

   He nudges him again. ‘Since he met me, yes.’

   Louis hesitates. It’s always odd when things get serious with him and Zayn, but he has to say it. ‘Listen mate, I’m sorry you guys can’t –’

   ‘It’s OK.’ Zayn exhales calmly, contentedly. ‘I’m happy being his friend. And yours. Are you happy, Lou?’

   ‘Of course,’ Louis says, and at least right now it’s not a lie.

   Only when he’s alone. Only when it’s dark. Only when he thinks about Harry.

 

*

Louis died when he was nineteen. By his count, Harry would have been seventeen, which made him twenty now. They’d met two years before, Harry being the little brother of Louis’s best friend Gemma, and her ultimately being a brilliant cover-up for when they started having ‘sleepovers’.

   When Louis’s mother died of cancer and his stepfather ran off, he’d run away with no goodbyes, lest Harry slow him down or beg him to stay. The last time he saw him, though, he gave him a ring: a simple black band that fit snugly on his middle finger. _I love you,_ he said, for the first time.

   _I love you too,_ Harry replied, a little confused. He was so young, so ill-equipped to be abandoned by a boy he’d trust with his life. Louis hates himself every day for being the first person to break his sweet, innocent heart.

   He doesn’t think about Harry every day. It’s more like once a week – but every time it’s like a body blow, that makes him want to curl into a ball, throw up, or slice himself open. Green eyes like spit-slick wine gums; hair like curls of chocolate on ice cream; teeth like milky sweets. He was almost abnormally beautiful, like a cartoon character or a baby doll. Every time Louis looked at him he wanted to eat him alive.

   While he checks on his sisters regularly, he hardly ever looks in on Harry. It feels wrong somehow; creepy, as he no longer feels he has any fundamental claim to him, even though he still wears that band on his middle finger. Zayn has no such scruples though, and so thanks to him Louis knows that Harry is a photographer for rich people who want portraits of their babies and dogs dressed up like miniature sailors or firemen, he lives in a small flat in London, and he has a boyfriend who plays guitar and pays the majority of the bills.

   Louis’s happy for him. He is. It only hurts when he thinks about Harry snuggled up in bed with another boy, tracing the lines on his palm and mumbling nonsense about how he’s taught himself to tell fortunes, and that little scar on his thumb could mean that he’ll encounter great suffering in life and the way his palm creases means that he’s already found his soulmate. Or when he pictures them kissing, Harry’s soft lips moulded to someone else. Or every single time the thought crosses his mind, really.

  Sometimes, when he hasn’t picked up anything that day and has no stories to relate, he’ll simply tell Zayn about Harry. The time they painted his bedroom and ended up stripping each other naked and covering each other with bright red handprints. The time they snogged lazily throughout an entire Arctic Monkeys album. The time they went for a walk in the park at five in the morning, when the grass was beaded with silver dew and everything was rich and lush and wet like new love.

   Zayn never had that with anyone. He won’t talk much about his life before he killed himself, but from the rare times he does Louis’s gathered that he was battered about by a boy in his English class. Sometimes his shirt will ride up and Louis will see the bruises on his hips, that remain even in death.

   _Is that the reason you did it?_ Louis asked once. _Killed yourself?_

Zayn shook his head. _I did it cos no one cared. Can we talk about something else now?_

   So he did. The idea of Zayn hurting is too much for him to bear anyway. But it reminds him that he can, at least, be happy for Harry’s happiness. As long as he’s settled and safe and cared for, it doesn’t matter that Louis can’t have him. He had his chance, in another life. And that life’s over now.

   He does miss him though. A lot. It’s something he’s gotten used to over the years, like a constant ache in his head or a cramp in his foot. He can’t imagine life – well, death – without it, really.

 

*

   A few days later, Liam stops by Louis and Zayn while they’re sitting on the edge of a cliff somewhere in Dover, staring into the sun to scorch their eyelids and blowing ice across the water beneath their feet. Louis sees him before Zayn does but doesn’t say anything because secretly he loves the way Liam looks at Zayn: the way a man dying of dehydration looks at a drink. It’s lust, but there’s something even more carnal underneath that, the most basic and simple of _needs,_ not to touch him, but to see him, and hear him breathe, and know that he exists.

   Eventually, Zayn turns, and his entire face softens into a sweet, wide-open smile. ‘Hey. What are you doing here?’

   ‘Cot death,’ Liam says sadly. ‘She was premature and she didn’t make it through the night so I sang her a lullaby to ease her pain.’

   It’s not really in Zayn and Louis’s capacity to feel empathy, even for the most helpless and frail, but they bow their heads to cohere to Liam’s solemnity. Babies’ souls don’t become angels. They’re recycled straight back into new bodies, to be given a second chance at life. It’s alright, Louis can’t help thinking, for some.

   After a while, Liam sits down beside Zayn, and the latter rests his head on his shoulder automatically. They always keep close to each other when they can, without the barrier between them. Louis can’t imagine them sitting at opposite ends of a table, or even going for a walk without holding hands. He wonders if sorrow always strengthens love, and if that makes them lucky or not.

   ‘You always find the most beautiful spots,’ he hears Liam murmur.

   ‘Only because they remind me of you.’

   ‘You’re so sweet.’ Pause. ‘I wish I could have saved you.’

   ‘What do you mean?’

   ‘I always think about you lying in that bathroom…trying to breathe…’

   ‘Hey. I’m happy here. If I hadn’t died I wouldn’t have met you.’

   God, they’re gross. Louis can actually feel the bile creeping up on him. He’d rather still be talking about that dead baby.

   ‘I don’t think I’m worth a life, Zayn.’

   ‘Yes you are. Anyway, I have Lou. We get by fine.’

   Louis wonders what Liam would do if Zayn told him that today they went around Wall Street tripping up all the stockbrokers into their coffee and doughnuts. Not to mention that their presence messed with the electricity to the extent that six computers crashed. Liam doesn’t see the things they do as fun; he sees them as mean.

   But Zayn doesn’t tell him. Instead they talk about football and comics and old books they once read while Louis cartwheels around the chalky grass and goes deep sea diving to scare the fish. He prefers to be on the move, while Zayn likes a quiet sit-down of an evening. He always wants to stay still and watch the sunset, but all that orange and gold and red just gives Louis secondhand energy to burn. He has, he reasons, an eternity to watch the sunset. Why bother starting now?

   When Liam leaves, Zayn goes with him, to escort him back to the border. It’s dangerous for angels to wander alone in the demons’ domain. There’s enough blood shed between them to cover eighty world wars. If a demon sees an unprotected angel the almost undisputed policy is to rip out its throat and take whatever punishment God sees fit to give, for death to an angel means the same thing as breaking their vows. But if Zayn is there then Liam is left alone. Demons are loyal, and loath to hurt one another, even if they do hiss _traitor_ behind Zayn’s back. They bide their time, and wait for Zayn to corrupt him himself.

   Meanwhile, Louis goes home.

   Home isn’t Hell, although they have to go down there every now and then to be counted. Because of the nature of Zayn’s death (suicide is frowned upon by those in charge) he’s required to go there regularly, to sit in solitary confinement and reflect on his life, as are the murderers and thieves and those who made bad decisions in worse circumstances. Louis’s seen his cell: a box barely big enough to hold his folded body, pitch-dark, stiflingly hot and hung with loose wires programmed to regularly send an electric shock down his spine. Louis despises the laws that punish him simply for having a terrible life, but there’s nothing either of them can do and so they don’t talk about it. Instead, they spend their free time as far away from Hell as possible, whereas many of the demons genuinely prefer it to the surface world. They thrive on dark, cramped heat – but Louis and Zayn live in an abandoned house in east London, where they go whenever they’re tired of wandering and just want to relax and remember what it was like to be normal. They spraypaint the walls, skateboard down the stairwells – and occasionally have sex, just to let off steam. It’s the least personal act in the world, rough and quick and fumbled, and more often than not Zayn’s gasping Liam’s name. They do it purely to relieve frustration, and they think of it as completely separate from their friendship, no more substantial than a fantasy to help each other get off. Still, Louis’s under strict instructions never to tell Liam.

   Today when Zayn gets back, Louis’s already naked and hard, and the other boy doesn’t hesitate before tearing off his clothes and straddling him, licking roughly into his open mouth and grinding down on his dick until they’re both almost unravelled. Sparks burn between them like they’re clashing metal rather than skin together, and it’s not long before Zayn’s panting _‘Fuck me, fuck me, please fuck me…’_

   If he were saying something like it at any other time Louis would tease him, but right now he’s just as desperate, and his voice isn’t his own when he grits out ‘Get on your back.’

Zayn obeys, like he would never do in real life, and Louis spreads his legs. For a second the illusion fades and they’re just two best mates fooling around and he could almost laugh – then Zayn moans _‘Liam,’_ and he slips back into the fantasy.

   He doesn’t see Zayn as anyone in particular when they do this. He can’t see him as Harry because he’d never have treated Harry like this. He remembers worshipping the insides of his thighs for ten straight minutes until he was absolutely wrecked; telling him he was the most beautiful thing in the world; licking chocolate sauce off of his stomach and then kissing it into his mouth. He can’t do that to Zayn so he tends to zone out and focus on the tight heat around his dick until they’re both done.

   It’s inevitably a little awkward after, but they’re fairly good at getting past it by now. They slip into their clothes with their backs turned to each other and then they cuddle for a bit, because they’re only human, except not really so maybe they’re just lonely and a little sad.

   ‘Lou?’ Zayn says quietly.

   ‘Mmm?’

   Pause. ‘Don’t be mad.’

   ‘Why would I be mad?’

   ‘I just…on the way back, Liam and I looked in on Harry.’

   Louis’s chest tightens. ‘Oh?’

   Another pause. ‘You should go and see him.’

   Louis lifts his head to meet his eye, trepidation beginning to ball in his stomach. ‘Why?’

   Zayn hesitates, biting his lip. ‘Harry…he’s dying, Lou.’

   Louis feels like he’s been punched in the chest. ‘What?’

   ‘There’s something wrong with his heart…I don’t know what it is but he needs a transplant and they’re probably not going to get it to him in time. He’s only got a few weeks.’

   No, that’s not true, that can’t be real. ‘How do you know?’

   ‘We heard him talking to a doctor.’

   Louis’s ears are ringing. Harry can’t be dying. Not _his_ Harry, with his massive spilling smile and rambling anecdotes and endless kindness for every living creature. He can’t be dying, not now. That’s not true.

   ‘But Lou, listen, you know what this means? When people are dying, they can see us. That’s how Liam could comfort me when I was still alive. If you go to him…he’ll see you. Lou, can you hear me? He’ll _see_ you.’

   But Louis’s not listening anymore. He’s crying.


	2. Chapter 2

It takes Louis a long time to get up the courage to go and see Harry. Eventually Zayn pushes him into it after an hour long back and forth of _He’d want you to come; What if he hates me; You were in love, that doesn’t go away; What if I cry; Lou, you_ have _to._

   So here he is, hovering outside the window of the hospital. There is a window box full of violets, and three cards lovingly arranged on the sill. Louis drifts closer, until he can see through the shining glass – and his heart falls into his stomach when he sees his old flame, his face pale as paper, sleeping fitfully under a thin white sheet. His curls are lank, unwashed, and the colour has drained from his lips, and with his eyes closed he could be dead.

   But he’s not, not yet, and so Louis dares slip inside, careful not to let the breeze from his movement knock over the cards. He can’t resist glancing inside them though, and finds one from Niall, one from a guy called Nick, and one from a couple called Ed and Cara. They aren’t Get Well cards – they’re deliberately ambiguous, with pictures of kittens and funny cartoons. Because he won’t get better. And they must know it by now.

   Louis swallows a stinging sob. It’s true, then. Harry is dying. And fast. How could this have happened? Was it him? Did his occasional presence in Harry’s life force bad luck on his shoulders like stones? If he’d stayed with him, could he have fought off the disease? If he were still alive, could he have cured it?

   He knows he being ridiculous. But he has to find some way to blame himself; some way to justify this horrific, terrifying injustice. He has to.

   ‘Who are you?’

   He jumps a mile (not literally, luckily). Harry is awake.

   He doesn’t turn around. The second the boy sees his face, there’ll be no going back. Here, like this, he could just be a bored nurse who’s wandered in to check on him. He could be nobody.

   ‘Who are you?’ the voice behind him croaks, but louder now, and stronger.

   If he can see him, death is close. You only see angels and demons on the periphery of the boundary between living and the afterlife. Louis’s knees are close to giving out.

   ‘What is going on?’

   Now he sounds scared, and Louis really can’t handle that. He’s been the reason for Harry’s smiles; his laughs; his love. He never wants to be the reason for his fear.

   He turn around.

   Harry’s jaw drops, his face turning even whiter. ‘L–’ His voice breaks, and he tries again. ‘Louis?’

  ‘Harry,’ he breathes back, unable to contain himself. He never thought he’d hear him say his name again. He’d forgotten how it sounded: like the name of a rare and beautiful flower Harry had found; how much awe and wonder he managed to breathe into the two syllables. The hurt, though, that’s new. ‘Oh, Harry.’

   ‘Louis,’ he repeats, and then he holds out his arms.

   But Louis doesn’t move. Demons can touch and even move inanimate objects with a little concentration, but not people. They go straight through them, leaving nothing but a cold, damp sensation and the odd aftertaste of metal. He isn’t going to have Harry find out like that. He has to tell him. ‘Harry, listen to me. I…this isn’t really me, right now. I mean…’

   ‘Louis?’

   ‘Harry, I’m dead.’

   Harry drops his arms, his complexion now the colour of cream. His voice comes out tiny, and cracked. ‘What? I…I don’t…but you’re here. Am I…dreaming? Am I _dead?’_

   ‘No, lo–’ Louis bites off the automatic term of endearment – whatever’s happened between them, Harry’s with someone else. Demon or not, he can’t ignore that. ‘When people are…d-dying, they can see us. Most of the time you can’t.’

   Harry suddenly shakes his head hard. ‘No, you can’t be dead. Please, Lou, please don’t be dead.’

   Louis can barely speak around the lump in his throat. ‘I’m so sorry, Harry.’

   His green eyes are full of tears, his face contorting. ‘H-how can you be dead?’

   Louis wants so badly to hold him it feels like someone’s tearing holes in his heart with a screwdriver. He keeps his fists clenched at his sides, his back pressed against the wall. He can feel himself shaking. ‘I was…in an accident. A train crash. It was quick. I didn’t feel anything.’

   A sob slips from Harry’s mouth. Guilt clenches in Louis’s stomach like nausea. What is he doing, upsetting him when he’s already unstable? How could he have ever thought this was a good idea?

   ‘Harry,’ he says, trying to contain the tears in his own throat. ‘Listen, you were right, it’s just a dream. You’re scared and you’re projecting it onto me. But you don’t have to be scared. You won’t be like me, when you die. You’ll be an angel. Do you know what they get to do? They get to fly around watching the world and comforting those who need it. They can look after the people they love, even send them messages. It’s not a bad life, Harry, I promise. Everything will be alright.’

   He turns to leave, telling himself that that was all he’d come to say. That all he’d wanted out of this was to tell Harry that death wasn’t the end. That nothing else mattered.

   ‘Wait.’

   He falters, one foot off the floor.

   ‘You’re not an angel?’

   ‘No,’ he says shortly, keeping his eyes on the sky. ‘I’m not. I didn’t die the right way. You will.’ He remembers his story. ‘But I told you, it’s not really me. It’s just a dream.’

   ‘No dream ever admits to being a dream,’ Harry says softly, sounding calmer now. More like the boy Louis used to know. But still desperately sad. ‘It’s really you, isn’t it?’

   Louis hesitates. But Harry’s right. ‘Yeah. It’s me.’

   ‘Turn around.’

   He doesn’t want to. Zayn was wrong about him being able to do this. ‘I have to leave. I shouldn’t have come.’

   ‘Why did you come?’

   He frowns. What kind of question was that? ‘Why wouldn’t I have come?’

   ‘Because you left.’

   _What?_ ‘You think I wanted to leave?’

   ‘What was I supposed to think? I woke up one day without you. I must have called your phone two hundred times in the space of a month. Then the…the operator said the number was invalid and I realised that I’d lost you.’ Tears are brimming in his voice again. ‘That you weren’t coming back.’

   Louis can’t take it. He’s nineteen again, scared to say goodbye. He’s seventeen, seeing him for the first time, terrified of how helpless he was to his heart and this beautiful boy. He’s eighteen, watching his mother die.

   He flies out the window.

 

*

‘How did it go?’

   Louis gives him a look, hoping he’ll back off. Zayn’s sprawled across the bed in their flat looking like the cat that got the cream and he’s not in the mood.

   Zayn’s not having any. He sits up, frowning in concern. ‘You just saw the kid again after three years, he’s on his deathbed, and you seriously don’t have anything to say? Did he see you?’

   ‘Yes,’ Louis mutters.

   ‘And?’

   ‘And I don’t want to talk about it.’

   Zayn sighs heavily. ‘Fine. You’re off the hook for now. Did you bring me anything?’

   Louis knows he’s trying to distract him – but instead, it just makes him snap. ‘What the fuck do you suggest I _bring_ you, Zayn? His IV? His pills? One of the fucking cards from his boyfriend? He’s dying and there’s nothing I can do about it except fucking _watch,_ and he thinks I ran away from him because I didn’t love him and God, all I want to do is hold him but I _can’t_ I _can’t_ I _can’t…’_

   ‘Hey.’ Zayn catches him in his arms, pulling him onto the bed with him so they’re chest to chest. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have made you go. Just forget about it. He’s only a human anyway, and then he’ll only be an angel. You’re not like him anymore. He doesn’t matter. I’m here, I’ve got you.’ He nuzzles into his neck, kissing along the underside of his jaw the way he does when he’s trying to bring him down from a high, to stop him shaking. ‘I’ve got you.’

   So Louis lets him have him because they’re both young and lonely and they can’t have the people they truly love. Zayn rides him because he can obviously tell he’s not up to much else, and they come together and cuddle for a while, until they have the energy to fly out to the nearest ocean for a shirtless swim to clean themselves up.

   Zayn’s eyes go dreamy as he floats on the surface of the water, staring up at the sky. ‘Do you think he can see me from here?’

   ‘Most people would be put off by the idea of someone stalking them.’

   Zayn punches him playfully. ‘He doesn’t _stalk_ me. He just says sometimes he tries to find me, if he’s lonely or sad. He says I make him happy.’

   Louis’s chest is aching. He’s glad that Zayn has something to hold onto, he truly is. But he can’t stand that he doesn’t get that.

   ‘When Harry’s an angel,’ he says, slowly, and as calmly as he can. ‘Do you think I could still go to see him?’

   Zayn sighs. ‘Honestly mate, I wouldn’t wish this on you. Maybe it would be better for you to just live like you were before, when you knew he was safe. Liam and I…I don’t know. We don’t even talk about it. Even when he’s with me, we can’t kiss, we can barely touch.’

   ‘I can’t touch him now.’

   ‘Yeah, and that clearly kills you. At least I’ll never know what life would be like if I could. I don’t have anything to miss; I’m just grateful I get him at all. It would be different for you.’

   ‘Well what’s my alternative, Zayn? Watch you pining for Liam for the rest of forever? At least I’d have someone to think about. At least I could hope.’

   ‘Do you really think I hope?’ Zayn murmurs, his voice low and suddenly bitter. ‘There’s no hope, Lou. There’s just what we have now. There’ll never be anything else. You’d have to know that. I don’t think you would. You’d forget. You’d try to touch him –’

   ‘So now you’re saying I have no self-control?’

   ‘One slip-up and you have to hear his screams for the next thousand years until he disintegrates.’

   ‘I _know,_ Zayn.’

   ‘I’m just trying to warn you, Lou. I’m not going to stop you.’

   ‘As if you could.’

   ‘Don’t make this a fight.’

   ‘Too late. Dickhead.’

   ‘For fuck’s sake, Lou –’

   ‘I’m going for a fly. Don’t follow me.’

   ‘Don’t do this –’

   ‘You have no idea what he means to me!’ Louis yells, already a hundred feet away across the water. ‘You have no idea about love!’

   Before Zayn can reply, he’s running, up, towards the border until he’s at the very edge of the earth, where the phenomena meets the noumena; where heaven meets mortality. There, he curls up on a cloud, buries his face in his hands and cries, for Zayn, for Liam, for himself, and most of all for Harry.

   If Harry didn’t think he was a dream before, he probably does now. He’ll move on with his life.

   And then he’ll die, and Louis will only ever be able to see him from a distance, when he comes to earth to help the sick and the dying.

   And he’ll have lost him all over again.

 

*

That night, Louis returns to the hospital, slipping in through the window once more. His heart is nearly shocked into starting again at the sight of the blond boy sleeping fitfully in the hard plastic chair by Harry’s bed, but he rationalises, reminding himself that even if he wakes, he won’t see him.

   Harry is staring at the ceiling. There are tears in his eyes, and Louis lets himself wonder for an instant if they’re for him. But then Harry turns his head and Louis presses himself against the wall, where the gloom nearly obscures him from view, and Harry squeezes Niall’s hand and whispers _‘I’m so sorry, love.’_

   And fuck, that hurts, like nothing Louis’s ever felt before. Because he can’t just see pain in Harry’s damp, hollow eyes. He can see the love too.

   He steps out of the shadows.

   Harry gasps, dropping Niall’s hand. The affection drains from his face, leaving only pain. ‘You came back.’

   ‘Yes,’ Louis mutters.

   Harry glances at Niall, as if to check he’s still sleeping, then whispers ‘I’m not talking to you now, not while he’s here. I’ve put him through enough without him thinking I’ve flipped.’

   Louis glares, stung. ‘I remember when you wouldn’t have chosen anybody over me.’

   ‘That was when we were together. I have more important people to care about now. People who are still alive. People who need me.’

   ‘And what exactly does he need you for?’ Louis retorts. He can’t bear the distance between them. How could Harry possibly think he doesn’t need him; that he ever stopped needing him?

   ‘Because he loves me, you bastard,’ Harry hisses. ‘And I love him, so _please_ just go. I don’t know why you showed up now, whether this is a game to you or you want to get in my good books so you’ll have a friend when I die, but –’

   ‘I’ve got a fucking friend already, you condescending twat.’

   ‘Fucking good, then go back to him and leave me alone! God knows you’re good at that.’

   Niall mumbles something, stirs. Harry instantly lays back and closes his eyes. Louis waits until the blond boy starts to snore softly, and Harry sits up again, his eyes steely and dry. ‘You’re the one who left me, Louis. And I have a life now, even if it’s only for a few more weeks. I have someone else. Please. Don’t do this to me.’

   ‘What happened to loving me forever?’ Louis murmurs. He knows he has no right to ask, but he does anyway because he’s a demon and he doesn’t know how to control the anger and shock and hurt inside him. He needs Harry to remember; needs him to understand how much he loves him.

   Harry shakes his head, a tear sliding down his cheek. ‘I was seventeen.’ His voice breaks. ‘You left. Did you really think I’d wait for you forever?’

   Louis’s heart constricts, like someone’s bitten into it. ‘Don’t cry. I’m sorry.’

   ‘If you’re sorry then leave.’ He takes a deep breath, as if he’s daring himself. ‘If you love me, then leave.’

   And Louis can’t argue with that, so he does, melting through the wall of the room and letting himself free-fall, past the windows; through the concrete; right down, down, down into the core of the earth.

   To hell.

   It's where Harry wants him, after all.


	3. Chapter 3

Demons don’t stay in hell if they can help it. It’s not just hot, with carpets of burning coals and rivers of molten metal that bubble and hiss and periodically reach out with silvery hands for their victims – there’s sulphur and acid in the air, and walls with spikes that close in whenever you stand still for too long. It’s essentially a massive maze, and those who have caused excessive harm to others in their lives are lost there, bumping blindly into each other because they’ve clawed out their own eyes to release themselves from the horrors they’ve seen in this place.

   Louis doesn’t technically ever have to come to hell, save the one time a year when they check in and scratch another burning cross next to their names to show that they’ve survived and haven’t gone too far astray. However, since Zayn committed suicide, something considered to be a sin, he has a designated time once a month to pay his penalty in a specially designed cell. Louis always comes with and waits for him, and that’s why he’s here now: he’s remembered that tonight is one of those times.

   He finds Zayn in the place they always put him, locked inside a tiny box barely big enough to fit his folded limbs, with only a thin crack to see through. It’s made of searing iron that melts over his hands and feet, cementing him there, and it periodically sprouts spikes that impale his skin before sheathing themselves again. He’s doing what he always does: singing.

   _‘Don’t look around cos love is blind_

_And darling right now, I can’t see you_

_I feel it proud so without a doubt_

_I can feel you…’_

   Trapped, eyeless demons are flocking to him, arms outstretched, glancing off of each other and the walls and moaning, searching for the source of the music. Louis doesn’t know whether they see it as torture or tantalising, but either way he tenses protectively in case any of them come too close. ‘Mate?’

   The singing stops, and the demons moan louder but wander away.

   ‘Hey,’ Zayn’s quiet voice comes back. ‘You still mad?’

   ‘Of course not.’ Louis sits beside the cell cross-legged, ignoring the discomfort from the coals. They don’t damage until after a long period of time. He’ll be OK. ‘Are you OK?’

   ‘Fine.’

   ‘I like that song.’ He likes everything Zayn writes, even if they’re all dreamy ballads about semi-unrequited love. ‘Have you shown it to Liam?’

   ‘No.’

   Louis knows Zayn doesn’t like him seeing him like this, crushed and helpless and shamed for what he did to himself. He also knows that, left by himself, he would only internalise the pain even more. He needs him to absorb his darkness, and Louis’s fine with that. ‘Talk to me. Don’t think about where we are. Just talk. Tell me about…’ He searches in his mind for a story Zayn’s told him; a happy one. ‘Tell me about your first kiss.’

   ‘You could probably tell it to me by now.’

   ‘I want to hear it.’

   ‘OK, fine.’ So Zayn tells Louis about being ten, in the garden of a girl he knew, the smell of honeysuckle dizzying and her caramel eyes intoxicating. As he describes the sunlight pouring over them like warm water and the rich, damp, green grass caressing their bare feet, it takes them both away, to a tiny ten-year-old Zayn who boldly grabbed a loose brick from their neighbour’s wall, stood on it, and pressed his lips against the girl’s. He remembers she tasted like spearmint chewing gum and her hair was butter-soft. He remembers that when he broke away she laughed like silver bells and held his hand for the rest of the day, even when his palm started to sweat. By the time she let go they were almost glued together.

   Louis remembers the first time he kissed Harry, how this curly-haired fifteen year old boy in a starched school shirt had wandered into Gemma’s room while she was in the bathroom and said _you keep staring at me, you know._

   Louis answered, his heart thudding in his throat, _how would you know that unless you were staring back?_

 _Good point,_ Harry murmured. Then he took a few steps forward, pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth, and ran back out.

   Louis doesn’t want to remember that. ‘Tell me something else.’

   So Zayn tells him about his first kiss with a boy, the boy, Amir from English class who had eyes that burnt through him like chlorine and hands as strong as cuffs. How he’d found him in the locker room one evening after a school debate that Zayn had won and whispered _do you want me to show you how persuasive you are?_ and then had pushed him against the shiny blue doors and held him there while he took what he wanted; what he said Zayn had wanted him to take.

   ‘I love you,’ Louis says, when Zayn falls silent, because it’s the only thing that he can give him right now.

   He hears his friend’s smile. ‘I know.’ There’s a scythe-like sound as the spikes dig in and he breathes in sharply.

   Louis winces for him, and sits beside him for the rest of the sixteen hours he has to spend there, talking about all the adventures they’ll have when he’s free, and how one day they’ll find a place to run where even the world can’t find them, and how they have the rest of forever to figure it out.

   When Zayn emerges, bloody and burnt and bruised from the cramped conditions, Louis hugs him as hard as he can. ‘I’m sorry for fighting with you.’

   Zayn hugs him back, just as fiercely. ‘I’m sorry too. You were right, I don’t know. Be with him if you want to.’

   Louis shakes his head. ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s too late. I lost him.’

   Then again, maybe he never had him. He was so young. Maybe Louis wasn’t a path, but just a bump in the road; a brief detour on the way to reality. Maybe they just weren’t meant to be.

 

*

Louis spends the next month determinedly not thinking about Harry. Zayn helps as best as he can by never bringing him up, and going along with each and every one of Louis’s stupid ideas, from crashing a few proms and pushing all the straight couples apart in the photos to scorching their fingertips on the edge of the sun. They don’t go to their house, spending their nights star-gazing from mountaintops or skimming stones across moonlit water or spying on nocturnal creatures in distant lands. They’ve seen and done it all before, but it has yet to cease to amaze Louis that he can see all over the world if he wants, and for Zayn, who’d never even needed a passport before he died, it always has and always will be a miracle.

   Louis’s a little jealously glad to have Zayn all to himself, to be honest. Liam hasn’t been sent on a job in a while and whenever Zayn wants to go to the border Louis distracts him with a suggestion to follow a plane from Dubai to New York or to send a corrupt politician’s papers flying when he tries to address Parliament. Their fight, and Louis’s condemnation of Zayn and Liam’s relationship, must have weighed heavier on him than he let on because he always agrees, although Louis often catches him looking up, and he can’t help but think that, whatever he says, the look in his eyes is very like hope.

   And it seems to pay off. Before long Liam finds them floating on an abandoned dinghy in the middle of the Mediterranean, discussing – of all things – death.

   ‘Did you feel anything when you died?’ Zayn’s asking earnestly. ‘I wasn’t quite sure where the line was between life and death because everything was so hazy, but I’m pretty sure yours was instant. So did it hurt?’

   Louis shrugs, lying back and placing his hands behind his head. He sees Liam instantly, but doesn’t bother to react. He’d rather he left. Seeing Liam reminds him of Harry, although he’s not sure why. Something to do with the purity rolling off of both of them in waves. At least Harry doesn’t have a fucking halo though; a hoop of white-gold that makes Liam’s eyes look like solid circles of light. ‘I don’t really remember.’ He does know one thing though: the last thing that flashed across his mind was Harry’s face, just after those of his sisters, and his mum. ‘It was very bright, then very dark.’

   A shark swims by, nudging the edge of the boat curiously. Louis runs his hand along its smooth side, and it shudders as if it can sense him.

   ‘Hi,’ Liam says softly.

   Zayn jerks bolt upright, craning his neck – and then blushes, ostensibly realising he’s coming across eager. ‘Hey.’

   Gingerly, Liam perches cross-legged on the surface of the water. _He might as well be fucking Jesus,_ Louis thinks sourly. ‘You guys doing alright?’

   Zayn nods. He looks almost scared, like he thinks he’s going to mess up. He’s always like this when he hasn’t seen Liam for a while: on edge, as if anything would have changed. Louis thinks he lives in fear of Liam deciding he’s not worth it after all. ‘Are you…good?’

   Liam smiles. ‘Yeah. A soul didn’t want to leave their body. Cancer. He had to let go.’ He glances at Louis, biting his lip. ‘Sorry.’

   ‘He doesn’t have cancer,’ Louis snaps, as if it matters. ‘It’s his heart.’

   Liam blinks. ‘I know. I just –’

   ‘Leave it,’ Zayn advises, standing and walking effortlessly across the small stretch of ocean to where Liam’s sat, and crouching down beside him. ‘It wasn’t a good idea in the end. Harry’s not ready for him.’

   Liam’s eyebrows raise, surprised. ‘But you two are…’

   Zayn shushes him, but Louis’s curiosity is piqued despite himself. ‘We’re what?’

   Zayn’s frowning now, and Liam looks at him for a long time but evidently decides to go with his own judgement, turning back to Louis. ‘There are some things angels know that demons don’t. It goes with the territory. Like, we can see souls where you can’t. Harry’s is beautiful, by the way. One of the purest I’ve ever seen.’

   Louis rolls his eyes obstinately. He knows that. Liam doesn’t have to rub it in.

   ‘But more than that,’ Liam persists. Souls have…strings. Threads, wires, whatever you want to call them, but connections, bonds to each other. Different colours. You and Zayn have one. It’s violet, which is, like, deep friendship. And then you have white ones that link you to your family, and blue ones that link to your acquaintances, and so on. But there’s one colour that hardly ever shows. It’s the deepest, most intense, strongest bond you can ever share with anyone. It’s gold, and it’s more substantial than the others: it means when you’re not with the person you share it with you can almost feel it, tugging, here.’ He touches his heart. ‘I’ve only seen it maybe ten, fifteen times in the time I’ve been dead. And you have one. With Harry.’

   Louis stares at him. Then he shakes his head. ‘Well obviously he doesn’t feel it anymore. And even if he did, what does it even mean?’

   Liam smiles, a distant look in his eyes. ‘It means it can never break. Other bonds do, even familial ones and they’re the second strongest. They can fray or snap or be cut. The gold one can’t. It’s like the strongest steel guitar string. I’ve even heard that when the people who share it come close enough, you can hear the music for miles around. I’ve never seen it though. It’s so rare, and even those who have it can go their whole lives without finding the person they share it with.’

   ‘But it doesn’t mean you have to go back to him,’ Zayn chips in. ‘You said yourself, he’s not up for it.’

   ‘What colour is yours and Zayn’s?’

   Zayn shoots him a warning look. Liam hesitates – then shakes his head. ‘We don’t have one. Angels can’t have one with demons.’

   ‘So it’ll break when Harry dies?’

   ‘I don’t know,’ he admits. ‘It’s the strongest, so maybe not. I’m just saying, that kind of connection…it’s special. It means that it’s not finished between you two. It never can be. You’re two sides of the same coin, back to back.’ He suddenly winces. ‘You know, when you died, he must have felt like he was being cut in half.’

   God. Louis feels sick at the thought. ‘So what do I do?’

   ‘Go back to him,’ Liam says simply. ‘Try again.’

   Zayn sighs. ‘It’s a bad idea.’

   ‘You were all for it at first,’ Louis points out.

   ‘Until you came back in pieces,’ he retorts. ‘I don’t care about some bloody gold thread or whatever. You’re my best friend and I don’t want you to get hurt.’

   ‘It’s more than thread,’ Liam says sharply. ‘It’s important. The angels say –’

   ‘I don’t care what the angels say!’

   Liam nearly lets himself sink through the surface in shock. Louis’s not surprised he’s obviously never heard Zayn raise his voice. Still, a fight right now is the last thing he needs. Besides, he wants to hear more about the gold thread and he can see that Zayn’s done with this particular conversation. ‘Listen mate, I’ll get Liam home safe. You go to the house and I’ll meet you there.’

   ‘Fine,’ Zayn says shortly. Then he’s swimming away, backstroke, leaving a swathe of white foam and bedazzled sharks in his wake, the sun glinting off of his upturned face like a flawless mirror.

 

*

‘Did I do something wrong?’

   ‘Don’t worry. He gets like that sometimes. And he misses you when you’re gone, I guess. We’re demons; we get angry.’

   He smiles slightly. ‘I do too, you know. I wish I could be with him always, but I can’t. Would you just tell him that?’

   ‘Why don’t you tell him yourself?’

   ‘Because saying it would make it too hard for me to leave.’

   ‘Oh. OK.’ Louis pauses, letting enough time pass that he thinks the atmosphere isn’t quite so heavy anymore. ‘So what were you saying? About the gold thread?’

   ‘Hmm? Oh, nothing really, it’s just one of these things I’ve heard, from angels who have been up here longer than me. They say that the golden ones – the people connected – when one dies before the other it’s because something went wrong, badly wrong.’

   ‘Ah.’ Louis understands now why Zayn was reluctant to discuss it: in this context, he would have been the thing that went badly wrong. ‘So…what does that mean?’

   ‘I’m not sure, really. Except that it’s what they call a breach of justice, the same thing they call it when people die of illness. When that happens, God makes us angel to correct the balance. But, obviously, he hasn’t done anything for you two. It’s difficult, I suppose, because you’re a demon. If he gave you any special treatment, the others would start to get ideas. But you know, I could plead your case to him, tell him you still love him –’

   ‘Don’t put yourself in danger on my account. If anything happened to you, Zayn –’

   ‘Might be better off,’ he says, his voice lower than it was. His eyes are downcast, colour darkening his cheeks. He looks almost ashamed to have said it – but like he’s been wanting to for some time.

   ‘What do you mean?’ Louis asks, ignoring the croak in his throat. ‘Better off without you? Why would you say that?’

   ‘I just…I worry that I hurt him, by being around and then leaving. Sometimes I think I should just leave him alone. And I know you do too. I see the way you look at me.’

   ‘I look at you like that because I’m jealous of how much he loves you,’ he says instantly, not even caring that he sounds like a twat. ‘You don’t hurt him. You make him happy.’

   He hesitates. ‘Demons and angels…it’s happened before. Not often, but sometimes. It never ends well.’

   ‘How so?’

   ‘Either the angel cracks, think if no one finds out it won’t matter, or one leaves to protect the other.’

   ‘You’re not that stupid.’

   ‘For which one?’

   ‘Either,’ Louis says firmly. ‘He needs you. He loves you. The rest will work itself out.’

   The corner of Liam’s lips quirks up slightly. ‘OK. But by that logic you should try again with Harry.’

   Louis turns his head, staring into the sun because it’s less painful than thinking about what happened the last time he saw Harry. ‘It’s different. He has someone else now. He loves him.’

   ‘Are you sure about that?’

   Louis looks sideways at him, frowning. ‘Do those threads tell you when someone’s faking it or something?’

   ‘Not exactly. But I’ve been observing him a little bit over the last couple of weeks, out of curiosity, and because I assumed you would want to know. Do you?’

   Louis thinks. Then he nods.

   ‘OK, well as far as I can tell it’s largely a partnership of convenience. Niall supports him, their parents get on, Harry played housewife until he got sick. There are Post-It notes all over their flat with instructions on how to work the oven, the dishwasher, the fridge…he mostly ignores them. I don’t like to listen to their conversations but they rarely have any. When he visits him he mostly just sits beside him, sleeping or practising his guitar.’

   ‘Charming,’ Louis mutters.

   ‘Yep. Listen Louis, I don’t want to tell you what to do but I really think you should give it another chance. You scared him the first time, you can see that right? He’s only just getting used to the idea of dying and then the love of his life shows up as a ghost. He says your name in his sleep, you know, I swear. You guys can still –’

   A sudden screech nearly splits Louis’s head open, and a demon materialises in front of them, slavering. She looks horrific, with her pointed teeth bared and her fingers crooked like claws, the nails embedded with dirt. She’s feral, Louis recognises, and he immediately pushes Liam behind him, using his strongest voice. ‘He’s with me. Get out of our way.’

   She emits a high-pitched hiss, and then spits at his feet. ‘Traitor,’ she rasps. Her hair and her clothes hang in tatters, and the whites of her eyes are flecked with crimson.

   Feral demons are those who are only allowed out of hell infrequently; those who have committed crimes worse than suicide but lesser than murder and so are kept in the maze for the most part but let loose for fresh air and sunlight. These are the demons who pose the most danger to the angels but since, unlike other demons, they tend to travel alone, the average angel would at least have a chance of survival when faced with one.

   Still, Liam gives Louis an immeasurably grateful look when, with one last snarl, she disappears. ‘Thank you.’

   Louis’s about to reply – and then there’s a blood-curdling scream.


	4. Chapter 4

Louis goes back to Harry two days after he and Liam watched a demon slaughter a sky-bound angel. To put it mildly, it wasn’t a bonding experience. Where afterwards Liam was horrified, half-hysterical with panic and guilt, Louis barely batted an eyelid, having seen it too many times and not having the energy to care about the angels. Liam had only stayed with him the rest of the way back to the border because he knew that without him he was probably as good as dead.

   Zayn was sorry when Louis told him what had happened, but only for Liam. The only people he cared about in this world were him and Louis, but he half-heartedly tried to grieve for Liam’s sake. Then he got distracted when Louis told him that the demon had ripped the angel’s throat out with its teeth. _Sick! How much blood was there?_

   No one knows if there’s an afterlife for angels and demons who die. Their remains are sent to hell for food and they are promptly and practically forgotten about. Louis thinks it’s a fairly efficient system, but he has a feeling Liam will remember this for quite a while.

   Zayn goes to see him, after leaving enough time that he’s hopefully calmed down a little, leaving Louis with a crown of seashells and a plea to bring him something nice from whatever adventures he decides to go on that day. Because, a deliberate move on Louis’s part, he has no idea that he’s going to see Harry. Louis didn’t see it worth unearthing that upset all over again. On the way to the hospital he stuffs a stolen miniature baby doll ornament into his pocket and hopes it will be enough to dissuade any suspicions Zayn might have when he comes home to find him smelling like vanilla, apples and innocence.

   This time, he taps at the window before he comes in, after a      quick glance inside to see that Harry is awake, alone, and gazing blankly at a book that Louis’s sure he remembers, although he doesn’t quite know from where.

   Harry starts at the sound, and it takes him a while to realise where it’s coming from, but when he sees who it is he doesn’t seem too irritated. He sighs, in something like sadness and something like exasperation, and inclines his head; an invitation.

   Louis slips inside but keeps his distance, shoving his hands in his pockets and trying not to look at him too intently. He seems in better form today, with washed hair and slightly brighter eyes. Louis finds himself wondering, jealously, if either are anything to do with Niall. Then he remembers that he didn’t come here just to pretend not to stare at his ex-boyfriend and so he says ‘I’m sorry.’

   Harry’s shoulders stiffen, his eyebrows creasing in suspicion. ‘For what?’

   ‘Everything.’ Louis gestures helplessly around the room, as if taking responsibility for everything from the bacteria in Harry’s body to the sickly-yellow wash of the walls. ‘That I left. That I didn’t come back.’

   At that Harry seems to soften, shaking his head. ‘No. I…you couldn’t have. I mean, obviously. I was being…unreasonable.’

   ‘No you weren’t,’ Louis murmurs, and to his surprise he finds himself daring to take a step closer. He can almost hear the hum as the fabled thread between them pulls itself tighter, willing them together. ‘I should have stayed with you. I wish I had.’ His eye falls on the cards on the windowsill – and the bracelet on Harry’s wrist with the twin silver letter charms ‘N’ and ‘H’ – and he clears his throat, covering for his slip. ‘I mean, it’s different now, obviously.’

   ‘Obviously,’ Harry echoes, although his expression implies that he doesn’t think it’s obvious at all. ‘I mean…you probably have someone else by now. Right?’

   Louis thinks about Zayn. Does he count as someone else? He’s touched him in some of the same ways Harry has, but only in the physical sense. No, Louis’s heart is still locked in this beautiful boy’s chest, whether either of them like it or not. He must know that. He must be trying to change the subject; steer it away from what they had.

   So why ‘someone _else?’_ As if he and Harry are the default, and anything else would be a deviation from the true path; from what was meant.

   Because Louis is hopelessly enslaved to his own wishful thinking. ‘No,’ he decides on eventually. ‘But you do.’

   Harry nods. A tiny smile cracks his serious face like a pickaxe against ice. Then it fades. ‘But I have to leave him.’

   ‘I’m sorry for that too,’ Louis whispers. Harry hurting in the open, honest way he always did, is like having a heavy, cold hand pressing down on his heart. To be able to hold him, to hear his heartbeat against his ear like he used to…but he lost that chance long ago, and Harry doesn’t love him anymore. That much is clear. ‘I wish I could help you.’

   Harry gives him a brief, intense, slightly appraising look. Then he says ‘You can.’

   His eyes are suddenly glittering, if only faintly. Louis recognises the old mixture of mischief and hope and his stomach tightens. ‘What can I do?’

   Harry pats the small space beside him on the bed. ‘Sleep here with me,’ he says simply. ‘Niall can’t. I need to know someone will be with me if…when my heart stops. I can’t die alone. I don’t want to.’ His voice falters. ‘Will you stay?’

   _And watch me die_ rings in the air, implicit and yet deafening. Louis imagines hearing those regular, sweet, rhythmic heartbeats fade into nothing; imagines the warm breath that used to tickle the back of his neck dwindling, weaker and colder until it just stopped coming. He imagines it and he wants, more than anything, to run again, and to keep running until he gets to the other side of the world or bursts right out of the atmosphere just so he can avoid this conversation, and knowing now that this is Harry’s expression when he discusses his own death.

   Harry drops his eyes. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbles. ‘You don’t have to. You don’t owe me anything. Go on. You’ve got the whole world; why would you waste a scrap of your eternity in the dark with me?’

   ‘Harry,’ Louis breathes. _I would have spent sixty eternities in the dark with you and they wouldn’t have been enough to drink all of you in._ ‘Don’t be stupid; the world can wait. But don’t you dare die on me tonight,’ he adds, half-joking and half-serious, as he takes a few further steps forward. ‘You’ve still got life left in you, kid, I can see it.’

   ‘Sing me that song you used to sing,’ Harry murmurs sleepily as Louis arranges himself on the bed beside his ex-boyfriend, on top of the duvet, and focuses all his energy on solidifying himself so that he take his hand where it rests by his leg and gently stroke its palm. ‘Wherever You Will Go. After you…you left, I couldn’t sleep without that song so I had to hum it to myself every night. I’d always imagine your voice. I. God, Lou, I missed you so much –’

   ‘Ssh,’ Louis soothes, gently but firmly. He doesn’t want Harry to feel like he has to flatter him just so he’ll stay. And there’s probably no point dwelling on the past. Thread or not, things are different now. Soon Harry will be an angel, and they won’t even be able to touch like this anymore. That makes him want to pull back, but he doesn’t. He breathes with the rise and fall of Harry’s slender chest, and starts to sing.

   _‘So lately_

_Been wondering_

_Who will be there to take my place_

_When I’m gone_

_You’ll need love_

_To light the shadows on your face.’_

   As he sings it, it occurs to him that the lyrics are almost like a pre-emptive offer of forgiveness: they both know that he would never have asked Harry to wait for him, whether or not he’d ever intended to come back. Harry’s done what he had to do to survive, and be happy. And Louis has too. But the chorus still rings true, so much so that Louis’s voice breaks between a few of the words.

   _‘If I could, then I would_

_I’d go wherever you will go_

_Way up high or down low_

_I’d go wherever you will go.’_

 

*

Louis dreams, because of course he does: he dreams in filtered memories, faded and sun-spotted like he saw life differently back then, a way he doesn’t quite understand now.

   He dreams that Harry’s rolling down a hill the colour of emeralds under a blazing blue sky, laughing hysterically as leaves and dirt cling to his hair and the sugar packets he stole from the café fling themselves desperately from his pockets. He dreams that he’s watching him from a picnic blanket with Gemma, and she’s scoffing but he’s just staring, entranced, as the birds-nest boy dazedly gets to his feet and then whoops and punches the air, having scored a victory the nature of which Louis will never really see.

   He dreams that Harry’s playing footsie with him under the dinner table, while Gemma and Anne talk abstractly about universities and degrees and driving lessons, winking at him as he downs his glass of milk in one gulp; dreams that he’s thanking God for the napkin on his lap and the air conditioning to cool his burning face. He dreams that Gemma throws him a glance and then kicks the both of them, but distracts Anne for fifteen minutes so that they can sneak into the bathroom together unnoticed.

   He dreams that Harry’s bought his first Polaroid camera and a box of rainbow frames and the very first picture he takes is of Louis and he keeps it for months afterwards, in his iPhone case, this startlingly sharp photo of a boy with a tousled fringe and swollen lips, who looks like he’s just swallowed a shot of sunlight and poured another one into his eyes. He dreams that he steals that photo one hungover morning after because he wants to show it to his mum, who in one of her lucid moments burst into tears because she never got around to taking photos of him, and that his little sister makes a grab for it with marmalade-sticky fingers and destroys it, and that he never tells Harry the truth about why it disappeared.

   He dreams that they’re driving in the rain and he lets Harry take the wheel, even though he’s sixteen and it’s insanely illegal, so he can neck a bottle of vodka and weep for his dead mother and his deadbeat stepdad and his screaming sisters until he can’t breathe, and that the windows are down so the rain makes them both look like they’re crying, although maybe Harry actually is, he’s not sure because everything’s so blurry. He dreams that they stop by the side of the road and Harry holds him, big-spooning for the first time because right now Louis needs manifest strength and arms to keep his seams from splitting. He dreams that he mouths _I love you_ into Harry’s shirt, because he has nothing else to give.

   Then he wakes up, and Harry’s giving him an experimental prod, his eyes widening when his hand goes right through his shoulder with a slight shimmering sound. ‘You don’t look insubstantial, you know.’

   ‘Are you saying I’m fat, Styles?’ Louis mumbles.

   He laughs quietly. ‘No. Just, you look solid. And look, you’re holding my hand.’

   ‘Holding things is pretty much the only thing I can do,’ Louis says, shrugging. He can see daylight through the blinds and he knows he should leave; that Zayn will worry and he might well check for him here. But here, like this, they could almost be young again. He could almost be alive, and they could almost be in love.

   As if to prove it, Harry strokes Louis’s cheek, and pouts perceptibly when once again he can’t quite get a good grip. ‘Couldn’t you have at least waited to die until I did? It’s weird not being able to touch you. Do you remember that time when you blindfolded me, and –’

   ‘Yes,’ Louis says hastily, his face flushing.

   ‘Mr Styles?’

   Harry jumps, and when the nurse bustles in he gives Louis a frantic look.

   ‘She can’t see me,’ Louis reminds him nonchalantly. ‘Have fun acting natural.’

   ‘Dickhead.’

   ‘Excuse me, sir?’

   Harry blushes the colour of glace cherries. ‘Sorry, not…I mean…hi.’

   She gives him an odd look, then glances at the morphine drip. Louis sees her make a mental note to check the regulation of the dose, after which she plasters a smile on her face and says ‘Mr. Horan is here to see you.’

   Harry glances again at Louis.

   ‘Again, he can’t see me.’

   ‘I don’t want you _here_ while he’s here,’ Harry hisses, and he tries to push him off the bed but ends up arms-deep in Louis’s chest, which. Well, suffice it to say that Louis’s scared for a second that the shiver it elicits will make Harry uncomfortable.

   The nurse looks genuinely worried now. ‘OK Mr. Styles, I’ll be right back. Are you…feeling alright?’

   ‘I’m fine,’ Harry assures her, still fused to Louis’s torso. Louis wonders absently why he’s not pulling away.

   She nods, expression uncertain, and then leaves.

 _‘Louis,’_ Harry groans the second she’s gone, removing his arms (Louis feels strangely empty, as if they cleared a space for themselves that’s still there) and flopping back on the bed.

   ‘You were the one blowing cover,’ Louis protests. But when he sees that Harry seems genuinely upset, he swings his legs out of the bed and then stands. ‘But I should probably be getting back anyway.’

   ‘Lou?’

   The old pet-name makes Louis’s hair stand on end. He debates for a second about whether he should respond in kind, and then decides to. Maybe this is Harry’s way of assuring him that they’re still connected, even if he can’t love him anymore. ‘Haz?’

   ‘You’ll come back, right?’

   Warmth blooms within Louis like violets, and he tries to hide his smile. ‘Sure, if you want me to.’

   Harry’s face splits into a beam, his eyes as bright as his perfect teeth. For the first time since Louis’s seen him, he looks genuinely happy. ‘Thank you. For coming back.’

   _I never left, not really. I love you as much as I did when I was alive. If things were different, I’d carry you right out of here and love the sickness out of you. But they’re not._ ‘Thank you. For letting me.’

   He darts away before Harry can say anything else painful or raw or impossible. Or before he’ll say something he regrets.

 

*

‘You went to see him, didn’t you?’

   Louis stares at him. He’s not normally this perceptive. Can he see the holes inside him where Harry pushed straight through him? ‘What makes you say that?’

   ‘We heard the goddamn music, you twat.’ But he’s smiling, sort of. ‘So I’m guessing it went slightly better this time?’

   Louis shrugs coyly. He doubts Zayn would understand if he told him that he got to sleep beside Harry Styles and that is worth more than all the oceans and skies combined. ‘Yeah it did. How was it with Liam?’

   Zayn mimics the gesture. ‘OK. We talked about the other angel dying. He couldn’t understand why it didn’t affect you, and I kind of tried to explain why we’re selective with who we care about.’

   ‘So is he still mad at me?’

   ‘Nah. It’ll be OK. The second the music started he completely melted.’

   Now Louis’s genuinely curious. ‘What does it sound like?’

   Zayn frowns. ‘Good question. It’s sort of harp-y I guess. Or violin-y. I don’t know; the only instrument I ever studied was the triangle, so. It was sweet, though. Can’t you hear it?’

   Louis shakes his head. Unless Harry’s heartbeat was the music – and it might well have been – he hadn’t.

   He misses him already, so much that his skin is tingling. The fact that he’s with Niall is making his blood boil, and the still serenity of the night before is starting to catch up with him, adrenaline bolting through him like lightning rods. ‘Come on,’ he says to Zayn, taking his wrist. ‘Let’s go trip people up.’

   Normally Zayn would be agreeing before the words were even out of Louis’s mouth – but now he hesitates, pulling away. ‘Liam says…he says it’s wrong to hurt other people.’

   ‘People hurt you.’

   He flinches, his hand going to the bruised bone of his hip. ‘I know. Liam says that was wrong too. It’s not like the balance restores itself when we hurt other people.’

   ‘Fine.’ Louis’s fists are clenching unconsciously. He doesn’t like the idea of Liam taking over his friend’s head. Angels think differently to demons. Angels haven’t suffered the way demons have. They don’t know what it is to be angry; to be cabin-fevered and crazy and lethal. To be hurt. ‘Let’s go hurt him, then.’

   Zayn frowns. ‘Who?’

   ‘Him. Amir.’

   Zayn’s shoulders stiffen at the mention of the name, and then he glares at him. ‘Are you trying to get me into trouble or something? You know we’re not allowed to haunt people we knew.

 _‘I’m_ allowed to haunt him.’

   ‘I don’t want you going anywhere near him,’ Zayn snaps. ‘He’s not worth it. What’s wrong with you, anyway?’

   ‘What’s wrong is that you’re being boring,’ Louis retorts. ‘Since when is Liam the boss of us?’

   ‘Don’t be dramatic, Louis, I just…’ His voice quietens. ‘He’s _good._ I want to be good. Good enough for him.’

   Oh fuck. Louis can’t stay mad at that face. He’s just in love. God knows Louis’s done stupid, crazy shit for love. Like lie straight to his boyfriend’s mother’s face when she found him in his bed one morning, explaining that he often wound up in weird places while sleepwalking. The fact that they were naked under the covers, she thankfully didn’t notice.

   So for now Louis settles down, and lets Zayn take him to the fairy pools in the Isle of Skye, where they rearrange the stones and bathe in the blue and Louis fucks Zayn behind the waterfalls, which helps a little.

   And if the way the water blurs green in the shallows, glistening and clear, reminds him of Harry’s eyes, even as his hips snap against Zayn’s and they gasp into each other’s warm, wet mouths, he only has to close his eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

‘There’s something you can do, you know.’

   Louis looks up. He’s been playing with the soft, warm sand on the shore of the deserted beach they’ve stopped at for the day, and he’s been aware for a while that Liam showed up and he and Zayn retreated to the rocks to talk among themselves, but he assumed that Liam still wasn’t speaking to him after what had happened the other day. Still, he’s not one to ignore an olive branch, so he replies. ‘About what?’

   ‘Harry,’ Liam says calmly. Louis notes how close he and Zayn are, and how their hands twitch on their knees, like they’d give anything to be able to touch.

   Well, Louis thinks, they probably would. ‘What do you mean?’

   ‘The thread’s important,’ Liam states. ‘Like I said. It’s not just something to be shrugged off. When people have that…it means they’re not supposed to be separated.’

   ‘Or what?’ Louis asks. He’s trying to keep his voice steady. Liam’s freaking him out a little. When Harry dies, will they both disintegrate if the thread is cut? Will the earth split apart? Will it spark a nuclear war?

   Liam shrugs. ‘I don’t know. It’s only happened once as far as we know, and even then it’s only a legend. Two lovers, teenage girls. There was a car crash and only one of them died – the other was saved by a demon who fell in love with her and poured his breath into her lungs to keep her alive.’

   This sounds sickeningly familiar. ‘So…the balance is only disturbed by…’

   ‘Demonic intervention,’ Liam clarifies. Zayn’s lips are pressed together but Liam’s not looking at him, although Louis wills him to. ‘So she lived, and the other became a demon. But she died less than a year after. Wasted away, and became an angel. And as she was guided up to Heaven they heard the screams – the _howls_ – all across the sky. And of course, when she was taken across the border, the thread was cut.’

   Louis’s breath catches, then he checks himself. It’s only a story. ‘And?’

   Liam sighs. ‘Apparently? Before then, there was no such thing as darkness. When that thread was cut, all the colour drained from the sky and the only light came from the angels’ halos, and the demons’ eyes. The darkness faded as the demons’ screams did – the angel was gone, crushed to stardust by the impact – but from then on there was night, and the world went on as if it had always been there.’

   In all honesty, Louis was just starting to take this stuff seriously, but now scepticism is definitely creeping in. ‘So what, if Harry dies we’ll get a six-hour day instead of a twelve-hour one?’

   Liam shrugs again. ‘I’m just telling you the legend.’

   ‘What happened to the other demon?’ Zayn asks quietly. ‘The one who fell in love with the girl; who saved her?’

   Now, finally, Liam looks at him. And Louis sort of sees why he didn’t before, because the pain in the angel’s eyes is almost tangible, and he’s clenched both of his hands into tight, tense fists, presumably to stop himself reaching out. ‘They didn’t tell me that part of the story.’

   Unable to bear the look on either of their faces, Louis stands up and goes over to where they are, sitting down beside Zayn and wrapping an arm around him as he takes his hand, trying to be what Liam wants to without intruding too much. He just needs Zayn to know that this isn’t his fault; that he couldn’t have known; that he’s made Louis happier than maybe he could ever have been because who’s to say he would have gone back to Harry?

   ‘Love?’ Liam murmurs, and Louis feels the way Zayn tenses at the endearment, as if he can hear the promise break as soon as it’s made. ‘I didn’t mean to make you upset. I was trying to say, there might be a way we can fix it. I can talk to the senior angels, maybe go even higher than that. He has a duty to set this right.’

   ‘But I made it wrong,’ Zayn mumbles.

   ‘Hey.’ Liam leans just a little closer, ostensibly as far as he dares, so Zayn’s fringe is almost brushing his cheek. ‘No you didn’t. Everyone fucks up. God sets it right with his judgement. That’s the deal.’

   Now Louis bristles. He can’t stand it when Liam talks about God in that pious, pedestal-complex tone. ‘Right, that’s totally why Zayn spends ten percent of the time in Hell for having a shitty life.’

   Liam flinches, hesitates. ‘There are some laws…harsher than others.’

   Louis rolls his eyes. ‘Suicide’s not a sin, Liam. Zayn didn’t do anything wrong.’

   ‘I _know_ he didn’t, but –’

   ‘So why is he being punished for it if God is so _just?’_

   ‘Could you both shut up?’ Zayn suddenly exclaims, making them both jump. ‘Believe it or not, I’d be perfectly happy if we never talked about that part of my life again. Is that too much to ask? Liam, see whoever you want about the bloody thread, if they punish me it’ll be because I deserve it.’

   ‘That’s not what I meant –’

   ‘And Louis, I need to be alone tonight. Go and see Harry. Here’s a trick: tell him what I did to you. See what he thinks. It is my fault. I’m the darkness.’

   ‘Zayn, mate –’

   ‘Love –’

   He takes off, sprinting across the water until he gets the momentum to jump up into the sky, leaving behind only the faintest of ripples in the shallow surface where his final footprint fades.

 

*

Louis checks their house before he goes, but it’s deserted. He leaves a smooth, shining pebble from the beach on the pillow, hoping it says what he can’t.

   Harry’s waiting for him this time. He’s not sure how he knows, he just sees it in the set of his shoulders as he sits up in bed, and how he’s staring at the same book but his eyes aren’t moving an inch.

Louis looks at the title before he enters the room. _Stargirl._ It doesn’t mean anything to him, but maybe it should. ‘Hey Harry.’

   Harry looks up, and that sweet smile breaks across his face. Louis can’t help but look at his mouth, and remember how entranced he’d once been by it. Well. Still is. ‘Hey Lou.’

   So it wasn’t just a slip last time. He’s going to be calling him the name he used to whisper in his ear when he was straddling his hips and the rain pattered on the window like fingernails, envious of their heat and their intensity sealed inside Harry’s dark bedroom.

   It’s raining now, but somehow it doesn’t feel as deliberately intrusive as it used to. It just feels cold, and obvious. ‘How are you doing?’ he asks, even though he knows it’s a stupid question. He’s dying, for fuck’s sake, how else could he be doing?

   Politely, Harry shrugs. ‘OK, I suppose.’

   Louis shifts uncomfortably. He doesn’t know how to ask whether Harry wants him any closer, or whether he really wants him at all. ‘What are you reading?’

Harry frowns, holding the book up to the light. ‘Don’t you recognise it? It’s Gemma’s; you gave it to her. She went through a phase of being a bit of a manic pixie dream girl and she was getting shit for it so you gave her this because it’s about non-conformity and porcupine ties. It’s cute.’

   Louis does vaguely remember that. Odd, that his most vivid memories of his time on earth are the ones he has with Harry. Most other things are a blur of sound and fading colours. He wonders suddenly if that’s something to do with the thread. He makes a mental note to ask Zayn – then decides against it. Zayn doesn’t want to talk about his life. That much he’s made clear. ‘So how come you’re reading it?’

Harry blushes a little, the colour warming his wan cheeks. ‘The first day you came to see me, when you left, I realised how little I have of you. Just…just the ring, really.’

   Louis waits for him to elaborate on its whereabouts, but he doesn’t. Instead he hastens on. ‘But I remembered the book, so I asked Gemma if I could read it. She was a bit sceptical, but she knows how I get when I start thinking about you, so –’

   ‘You think about me?’

   He bites his lip, like he’s said too much. But then he lifts his chin with a hint of defiance. ‘Yeah. Don’t you ever think about me?’

   ‘Well of course I do, but –’

   ‘But what? You think just because I was only seventeen I didn’t love you as much?’

   OK, now it is definitely time to change the subject. Emotions are too much for either of them to handle right now. It’s all too raw, and unreal. Especially talking about love. He comes forward to the other boy’s bed, sitting precariously down on the edge and taking his hand, which feels like an OK thing to do now. ‘I know,’ he says quietly. ‘I know. Can we talk about something else?’

   Harry blinks three times, then breathes out and nods. ‘Yeah.’

   ‘Tell me what you’ve been doing,’ Louis suggests, as lightly as he can. ‘Tell me about your life.’

   Harry looks slightly confused for a second, but when he snaps out of it, he does, and Louis knows most of it already: photographer; hopeless romantic; guitarist boyfriend – but hearing it from him makes it sound fresh and new and beautiful.

   Which doesn’t mean that it isn’t sad, because it is. After Louis left, Harry describes himself as _drifting._ He’d always assumed he’d be planning his life around Louis’s, and without him he no longer had an anchor, let alone wings. So he drifted for a year, then he pulled himself out of it and started pursuing what he’d always suspected was his true passion: wildlife photography. He took a gap year intending to travel abroad and snap shots of anything that breathed or looked beautiful in foreign countries with shimmering air and cloudless skies. But then he met Niall, and suddenly nothing else really mattered anymore, at least for a little while. Long enough, anyway, that he felt he’d missed his chance.

   ‘Does it matter now?’ Louis murmurs. It feels, though, like he’s asking something else. _Is it different now, with him? Do you still love him?_

   ‘Yeah,’ Harry says, and Louis reads it as a response to his unspoken questions as well.

   ‘Will you tell me about him?’ he asks, after a moment’s silence. He doesn’t particularly want to know, but maybe it will make the story less sad.

   It doesn’t. ‘I loved him. Like crazy. To me he was, like, this purity. I mean, after you I’d go out and get with guys, but it was always dirty and quick and bitter. I was trying to get your taste out of my mouth. Niall…he reminded me of it. And I liked that. He looks a bit like you as well, I guess. Blue eyes. Light hair. I didn’t see it like that at the time, but. And he sings too, although not as sweetly as you. He’d sing to me and I’d close my eyes and be back where I was, when I was young and nothing hurt. Do you remember how that felt?’

   Louis nods. His throat is tight, but he tries not to show it. He doesn’t want Harry to see how excruciating this is for him. The boy’s obviously just rambling, probably half-high on morphine, and missing the person he loves. And once more trying to reassure Louis that he didn’t forget about him. He wishes he wouldn’t. The idea of Harry giving up every dream he ever had because he found a boy who reminded him just that tiny bit of him makes him feel sick. Because that would mean that he’s to blame too.

   ‘I do,’ Harry says dreamily, lying back. His eyes drift shut, and Louis wonders whether he’ll sleep, and if this is his invitation to stay. ‘All the time.’

   ‘You’re still young,’ Louis whispers.

   He smiles, serene and calm. ‘But I’m dying.’

   ‘Do you…’ His voice is breaking apart like shells. ‘Hurt?’

   ‘Most of the time,’ he replies evenly. ‘Not now. Not with you.’

   Now Louis summons the daring to lie down beside him, even though he still doesn’t touch him aside from threading his fingers even tighter through his, so that even if he falls asleep he’ll keep holding on. ‘Well I’m not going anywhere. You know that, right? I…I’m glad I found you again.’

   ‘Me too,’ Harry whispers, like he’s scared someone else will hear. ‘Thank you. For finding me.’ Pause. ‘Was that true, about how you died? The train crash?’

   Louis pauses, considering. Maybe, if Harry’s going to trust him, he should tell him the truth. Zayn did ask him to. It would be nice to bring him back a positive report. ‘Not exactly. I was on a train, and it did go up in flames. But it was because a demon saw me. He was lonely and I looked like I was too, so he thought we could be friends. So…he brought me up to him.’

   There’s a beat of silence. Then Harry yells _‘What?’_

   ‘Hey, ssh,’ Louis interjects quickly, slapping his semi-solid hand over Harry’s mouth. ‘Do you want the whole hospital to hear you?’

   ‘He _killed_ you?’ Harry shouts, muffled, between his fingers. ‘Someone _killed_ you?’

   ‘It wasn’t like that, Haz, and it was for the better, look, I’m fine, I’m OK –’

   _‘He took you away from me!’_

   ‘No, he didn’t!’ Louis yells back, his defensive instincts for Zayn kickstarting into overdrive. ‘I did!’

   Harry starts to cry, sobs tearing out of his throat as tears bead on his eyelashes. ‘He killed you,’ he croaks, pressing his hands to his mouth, over Louis’s. ‘He killed you.’

   ‘I’m here, though,’ Louis murmurs back, peppering tiny cold kisses over the younger boy’s face as his chest heaves and his breathing stutters. ‘I’m here, and everything will be alright.’

   Eventually he manages to calm Harry down, singing to him again until he slips into sleep like you let go of a rope when you’re too tired to hold on anymore.

   Louis watches him, his small, damp-eyed summer sweetheart. He thinks about the story Liam told him: the desperate demon; the broken-hearted girl; the darkness.

   And he promises himself right there and then that he’ll never tell Harry about the thread.

 

*

_‘You and I_

_We don’t wanna be like them_

_We can make it til the end_

_No, nothing can come between you and I_

_Not even the Gods above_

_Could separate the two of us…’_

   As sunrise creeps across the sky in a symphony of butter and rose, Louis follows the sound from Harry’s bed to the Glow Worm Cave of Mexico, where he finds Zayn sitting in the blue-tinted gloom singing to insects and empty space.

   Louis hands him a piece of twisted metal that reminds him of what a heart might look like after it had been broken beyond repair, and for a moment he thinks Zayn isn’t going to humour him, but soon enough, and only a little grudgingly, he asks ‘Where did you get this?’

   ‘I took a detour on the way here and went deep-sea diving. Found a shipwreck. I was gonna steal the silver but then I thought there was no point, since we could find that anywhere. So this is what I think might have once been a corkscrew.’

   Zayn splutters, turning the wrecked contraption over in his hands. ‘Wow. You sure know how to make someone feel special.’

   As he inspects the gift, Louis takes the time to study him. His hair is tousled, he looks very tired, and his eyes are rimmed with red. ‘Are you OK?’

   ‘Liam won’t shut up about the thread,’ he states flatly, still staring at the metal. ‘I know he knows I don’t want to talk about it, but he can’t help it. He sees hope for you two. And he needs that because he can’t see it for us.’

   ‘I’m sure that’s not it –’

   ‘Yes it is. We might not talk about it, but it’s not because we don’t both know that we’re never going to be together. So he’s pouring his heart into you instead because I’m not worth it.’

   ‘Don’t talk like that, mate.’

   ‘It’s _true._ God, even if they ever made exceptions for love, they’d never do me any favours. I’m a murderer.’

   ‘You didn’t –’

   ‘I killed myself and then I killed you.’

   ‘And you seriously need me to explain to you again why they have no right to punish you for either of those?’

   ‘No, I just…’ He buries his face in his hands helplessly. ‘Fuck, I don’t know. I wish that wasn’t what he sees every time he looks at me.’

   ‘Zayn, it’s not. Believe me, it’s the last thing he’s thinking about when he’s looking at you. You could make diamonds from his eyes when he sees your face.’ He sits down beside his friend, resting his head gently on his shoulder. ‘Anyway, at least he loves you. Harry doesn’t. Love me, I mean.’

   ‘Really,’ Zayn says wryly. ‘What makes you say that?’

   ‘He just doesn’t. He was a kid when I left. To him I’m a memory the real me would have never matched up to. He wants me to sleep beside him so I’ll hear his heart stop beating, and he wants me to sing to him because it reminds him what it was like to be a kid. I’m the equivalent of a fucking Teletubbies video.’

   ‘You don’t really believe that, do you?’

   ‘Why wouldn’t I?’

   But Zayn just shakes his head, lying back and placing his hands lazily behind his head, staring up at the glow-studded ceiling. ‘You’re too hard on yourself, Tomlinson. Talk to him. Talk about old times. Watch his face when you do and tell me you couldn’t make diamonds out of that.’

   ‘You can’t just steal my metaphor.’

   ‘Just did.’

   Louis punches his shoulder. ‘Twat.’

   ‘Wanker.’

   Playful insults bleed into wrestling which both of them end up tiring of before they can go any further. Louis can see that Zayn’s too tired and strung out today to be able to take any pleasure from fantasising about Liam, and as for Louis himself, he’s way too in his head. Irrationally, he worries that when Harry wakes up without him he’ll assume that he was only a dream (the idea that Harry might not believe he’s real makes him think he’s fading away by pure suggestion), and then, worse, he worries that Harry really will die in his sleep with no one to hear his final breath.

   Still, he stays with Zayn. Maybe because he’s scared of coming back to a stripped room smelling of death. Maybe because he’s scared that Niall will be there by now, holding Harry’s hand and being the boy he loves the most. Maybe because he’s scared of what Zayn will do if left to his own devices (he never likes to leave him alone for too long, since the depression he suffered from while mortal left him with a fairly fragile mental state and all-too-frequent mood swings). It doesn’t matter how he justifies it to himself really, though. All he knows is that both Zayn and Liam think Harry still loves him, and that should not make his chest feel so warm and full, or make him feel quite so light-headed.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SO sorry this took so long! I had exams but they're over now so I'm hoping to finish this soon, thank you for your comments and kudos so far, they're much appreciated!

Chapter Six

Sleeping beside Harry becomes a thing. It shouldn’t, but it does, and Louis can’t bring himself to question it. Every evening he’ll say goodnight to Zayn and fly from wherever they are, whether it’s Australia, the Arctic, Mexico or Manchester, to that tiny room in the hospital where Harry lies, and stay with him all night long.

   Sometimes he won’t even be awake by the time he gets there, and he’ll still be asleep when he leaves, but that doesn’t matter. He tells himself he’s only there because Harry wants him, but in reality being with him is the happiest he’s been since he died, even with all the world’s offered him in death. The sound of his heartbeat is the sweetest lullaby he’ll ever hear.

   He dreads the day it stops.

   They talk about it occasionally, when Harry’s awake. Louis tells him about Liam, and the feathered white wings he tucks inside his T-shirt when he’s not flying, and the gold halo that hovers above his head. He tells him some of the stories he’s related to him and Zayn over the years, about cot deaths and children’s hospitals and grandparents slipping away with their entire families crying at their bedside. These, he explains, are the good deaths. The ones that were written into the world from the beginning because these souls were needed for other purposes. Young souls are recycled. Old souls are allowed into paradise. The ones in between are made angels, so that their strength can be put to better use.

   He doesn’t go into detail about the demons, or how they die. Harry asks, but he avoids the question. He talks to him about Zayn though, because he feels the need to make him understand who the boy truly is, and that he isn’t evil in the slightest. At first when he talks about his obligatory periods in hell Harry mutters _Good,_ but his face softens when he tells him the real reason. He even asks to meet him eventually, but Louis doesn’t really think Zayn can handle yet another angel in his life, even if Harry isn’t technically an angel yet.

   One day when they’re talking about Harry’s old ambitions, Louis gets an idea. He gets Harry to ask Niall about bringing a camera in for him, and when it’s been obtained he borrows it one early morning, swooping off with it clutched carefully in his hands, returning in two hours with a clutch of photos he took from the top of Mount Everest. When he shows them to Harry he nearly passes out, and then he tries to throw his arms around him but, of course, they go straight through him. Still, Louis appreciates the gesture, and from then on that becomes a thing too. Zayn eyes the camera with distrust, but doesn’t say anything. Louis stops bringing him things when he goes on his adventures, caught up with the snaps he takes for Harry’s sake. Zayn doesn’t say anything, but when Louis comes back to their house in the mornings he’ll find him naked more often than not, and he’ll give him what he wants because neither of them have much else. Liam fades in and out but he doesn’t seem as close as he was starting to. Louis tries to talk to Zayn about it, but he always just kisses him instead.

   Tonight when Louis leaves, Zayn’s just sitting curled up on a pier with rain tumbling down around him, blurring his outlines and making him look even less substantial than he is. The only water that’s touching him are the tears scratching their way out of his eyes.

   Louis does his best to kiss them away but gives up after a while, too worried that Harry will think he’s not coming if he waits much longer. ‘I have to go.’

   Zayn shrugs, his voice flat. ‘I know you do.’

   ‘Don’t stay here all night. Go somewhere pretty. Somewhere in the sun.’

   ‘Maybe I don’t like light anymore.’

   The clouds crack slightly above their heads, showing a strip of pink sky, and a ray of gold that falls just short of where Zayn’s feet hover over the edge of the water.

   Louis points to it, touching Zayn’s shoulder. ‘Look. Are you telling me that’s not beautiful?’

   Zayn just shakes his head, drawing his knees up to his chin and wrapping his arms tightly around his legs. ‘Just go. Your sunshine’s waiting for you.’

   Louis flinches, because he’s right and he can’t break his promise to Harry. But he doesn’t want to leave Zayn like this. ‘Don’t you want to go and see Liam?’

   Zayn gives him a hard look, but no reply.

   ‘Come on, Zayn,’ Louis says softly. ‘Is it the light you don’t want, or the fact that it has to come with a bit of dark?’

   He doesn’t answer, looking away.

   ‘Because if you pick complete darkness over a little bit of light, you’re never going to be happy. Harry wouldn’t be sunshine if I were allowed to see him during the day. It’s the dark that makes him shine.’

   ‘For God’s sake, Louis, would you shut the fuck up?’ Zayn snaps. ‘I wasn’t trying to make a bloody metaphor. Leave me alone.’

   And Louis can’t think of any other way to make the situation better, so he does.

   Harry’s asleep when he gets there and he still is at sunrise, so Louis leaves just a little earlier than he would have, because he’s worried what Zayn might do if alone for too long. As has become habit, he follows the sound of singing, clear across three oceans, tracking the echoing song above the sweeping wings of birds of prey and the grating shift of tectonic plates.

   _‘And being here without you is like I’m waking up to_

_Only half a blue sky; kind of there but not quite_

_I’m walking around with just one shoe_

_I’m half a heart without you…’_

   He finds Liam first, hovering a few hundred miles off the ground cross-legged, his elbows on his knees and his chin on his cupped hands. ‘Hey.’

   He starts, nearly falling out of the sky, but when he sees it’s only Louis he settles, returning his eyes to the earth. ‘I wasn’t sure if he wanted me.’

   Louis shrugs. ‘He doesn’t know what he wants. But that song isn’t exactly ambiguous, is it?’

   He smiles a little, but there’s sadness painted in pastel watercolours all over his face. ‘You think I should go to him?’

   ‘Yeah, I do.’

   ‘OK. Thanks, Louis. Listen, I’ve been talking to some angels about the thread, and –’

   ‘Liam? Look, do yourself a favour and forget about it. Zayn doesn’t want to hear it and it doesn’t matter anyway. We had our chance. I had mine. And he didn’t waste away. We’re not like the others. He can live without me: he did.’

   ‘But –’

   ‘Don’t. Please. He’ll be gone soon anyway. And I’m going to take the time I have with him while I still can. That’s all we can do, mate. God or not.’

   Liam doesn’t look convinced. But he doesn’t stop Louis as he flies away through the misted morning, back to Harry.

 

*

‘Niall and I fought today.’

   ‘Oh?’ Louis replies, trying not too sound either as interested or uncomfortable as that information makes him feel. Harry doesn’t seem to realise it’s not night anymore, having blinked himself awake by the time Louis came back through the window. The curtains are closed, have been for a few days now, and Louis doesn’t have the heart to tell him it’s probably time for him to go. There’s something addictive about the way he seems to want him here, close enough to touch, if he could.

   Harry sighs. His skin is greying now, his eyes washed out like faded jeans. He needs light, but he doesn’t want it and Louis doesn’t think it matters. There’ll be all the light he can handle when he’s an angel. And most likely Liam will do a better job looking after him than Louis ever could, with his bitter dark heart. ‘He says I’ve stopped fighting. That I’m being selfish, because he needs me. That I have to hold on.’ He blinks hard, his eyes dampening. ‘But I don’t want to hold on anymore, Lou.’

   ‘Ssh,’ Louis soothes, and he can’t do anything else except squeeze Harry’s hand as hard as he can without crushing it and say ‘You don’t have to. But…don’t let go, Haz.’

   Harry looks up at him, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion, and for a moment he looks like he’s fifteen. ‘Why not?’

   ‘Because…’ But he falters. Wouldn’t asking Harry to stay in this moment for just a little longer, through the pain and guilt he’s already been wrapped in for so long, make him as bad as Niall. If you love someone, he’s heard it said, you’re supposed to let them go. But are you really supposed to tell them not to hold on if they can; if they are the core of the universe? ‘I’d give anything to still be alive.’

   The frown deepens. ‘Why? I thought you were happy.’

   ‘I…I am. In ways. I can do things and go places I couldn’t before. But there’s so much you miss when it’s gone, Haz. Feeling the warmth of the sunshine or cold water on your skin. Ground beneath your feet; the security of gravity.’ His voice cracks. ‘Holding the people you love.’

   ‘But you love Zayn now,’ Harry says, like it’s that simple.

   ‘Not the way I loved you.’

   He flinches, like Louis’s flicked fire in his face. ‘Don’t say that. Don’t try to make me stay.’

   ‘I’m sorry,’ Louis replies instantly, banishing the tears pricking the backs of his eyes, cursing himself for being so careless. ‘That wasn’t…I’m happy you’re with Niall. But that’s my point, Haz. Imagine never being able to hold him again, or even talk to him. Leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. It ripped my heart right out of me. I’d give so much…anything, to have one more day alive with you.’

   Harry stares at him. His lips are slightly parted, his eyes wide.

   Nervous now, Louis just keeps rambling stupidly, like he used to do when they were teenagers and Harry would fall silent when he said something too serious, or sad. ‘Be with him while you can. You’ll regret it if you don’t, I promise. Every single day. Every single second.’

   ‘No I won’t.’

   He falters. ‘What?’

   ‘I don’t love him. Not like that. I told you, I only wanted him because he reminded me of you.’ He pauses, takes a deep breath. ‘I only ever wanted you. I loved you. I still do.’

   Louis’s heart doesn’t beat anymore. He knows this, logically. But something happens in his chest when Harry says that. He’s not even sure he wants to think about it – it’s just too confusing at this point, on top of everything else – but he does think that he might be able to hear the music now. It’s in a minor key, which makes sense. If any of this makes sense.

   ‘Louis?’

   ‘Yeah, Harry?’

   ‘Do you still love me?’

   The idea that he has to ask is almost funny. Or it would be if Louis wasn’t two blinks away from crying. ‘Of course I do.’

   ‘Oh. I thought you didn’t.’

   Now he has to laugh, although it sounds more like he’s choking. ‘Why do you think I come here every damn day, Harry? You think it’s fun watching you die?’

   ‘I thought you felt sorry for me. Because you left. They found out my heart was done for a few weeks later, you know that, right? That was why I didn’t try to find you. I didn’t want to put you through it. I thought it was easier for you now because…I didn’t mean that much to you anymore.’

   ‘For fuck’s sake, Haz.’ Louis’s head hurts like there’s electricity crackling in his skull. Harry’s heart gave up on his body when Louis died. It’s his fault.

   And Harry still loves him.

   It’s something of a relief to realise that he can’t ignore the day anymore. The strips of pale yellow through the blinds are beginning to burn gold and soon Niall will be here and he can leave and they can both forget that this conversation happened and go back to pretending that Louis didn’t shatter everything the day he walked out on this beautiful, doomed boy. Hating himself, he kisses the corner of his mouth; a second of sweetness to make up for all the years of suffering he’s caused. ‘I have to go. I’m sorry. I’ll come back tonight.’

   He doesn’t say _I love you,_ and he certainly doesn’t wait around long enough for Harry to try it either. Just like when he was nineteen, he simply leaves, the bond between them left endless and unbroken and eternal.

 

*

He leaves Liam and Zayn alone for most of the day, waiting for Zayn to come and find him, which he does in the late afternoon looking flushed and halfway to happy. They don’t talk, just lie on the grass of their old favourite island and let their fingers brush every now and then until Louis sits up, figuring it’s time to go back to Harry and do whatever it is he’s going to have to do to fix things.

   Then he glances across at Zayn and his expression – not quite a smile but contentment nonetheless – and gets an idea. ‘Come and meet Harry.’

   ‘You what?’

   ‘You’re my best friend. I want you to meet him before he dies.’

   Zayn shifts uncertainly. ‘Does he know that I…’

   ‘I told him how I died, yeah.’

   ‘I find it hard to believe he doesn’t hate me.’

   ‘Well I never said that, did I?’

   He sighs. ‘Louis…’

   ‘I told him you’re a good guy. He’ll believe me when he meets you. Please Zayn, I just…can’t be alone with him right now. He told me he still loves me.’

   Pause. ‘And?’

   ‘And I can’t cope, OK? Love isn’t enough. I don’t want to have to tell him that. I just want to distract him. Please.’

   He rolls his eyes a little, but sits up obligingly. ‘Fine, I’ll come. Liam and I had a good time today by the way, thanks for asking.’

   ‘Last time I asked you about Liam you bit my head off, mate.’

   ‘Fair enough. Well it was nice anyway. I think you were right you know, about the light. Maybe you and Harry will be able to make something work.’

   ‘Don’t.’ Louis shuts his eyes obstinately, shaking his head. ‘We’re not talking about that, not tonight.’

   And they don’t. Harry’s exceptionally doped up when they get there (happily, he tells them that they’ve doubled his morphine dose in preparation for the end) so although he pouts reproachfully at Zayn for a bit it’s not long before he’s cracking up at one of his smart remarks at Louis’s expense. And to Louis’s surprise, when he innocently asks how Zayn died, he actually tells him: tells him how that was the day he finally told a teacher after Amir locked them both inside a bathroom stall and slammed him against the door by his hips (he even lifts his T-shirt to show Harry the violet bruises); how the woman simply said _relationships are always tricky when you’re young_ and then sent him away so he wouldn’t be late to his next lesson; how he walked right out of school and all the way home and choked down thirty-eight pills; even how Liam sang him to sleep.

   It’s only when he’s describing his suicide though, that Harry leans forward. ‘And killing yourself makes you a demon, right?’

   Louis’s throat constricts. He registers Zayn’s concerned glance in his direction, but his focus is now solely on Harry. ‘He has to spend sixteen hours a month in hell. It’s not worth it, Haz. Trust me.’

   ‘But –’

   _‘No,_ Harry,’ he snaps. _I’ve already killed you once. I’m not going to do it again, however indirectly._ ‘You’re supposed to be an angel. That’s the way it works. No one chooses to be a demon.’

   ‘But I do.’ His face is crumpling, regressing back to childhood again. Will Louis ever be able to stop seeing him like he was; what he lost? ‘Don’t you want me, Lou?’

   No, he’s not dealing with this. He grabs Zayn’s hand, pulling them both off the bed. ‘No. Not like that. Never like that. I love what we were, Harry. I’m not going to watch you suffer any more than I have to. We weren’t meant to be.’

   ‘Louis,’ Zayn protests, looking back at Harry as Louis wrenches him towards the window. ‘The thread…’

   ‘Shut up,’ he warns. ‘I’m leaving, Harry. I can’t see you anymore. I won’t. Stay with Niall. Take what you have. You can’t do anything else.’

   He hears a sob, and it splits a hole in his heart but he doesn’t turn around. ‘Lou, please don’t go…’

   ‘I shouldn’t have come,’ Louis says bluntly. ‘This is your life. I’m not going to let you stop living it. Goodbye, Harry.’

   _‘Lou!’_ he screams, and God it scares him, he sounds like he’s breaking in half.

   But it’s just the drugs, he tells himself, just the fear and the darkness and the death. He’ll see the light when the sun rises. He has to. Maybe if he can cut the thread now, he won’t end up destroying the world as well as the person he loves.

   So, for what he promises himself is the final time, he runs away. The only difference between this time and the first is he’s holding someone else’s hand.

   And Zayn, he decides, is one thing he’s never ever going to let go.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long! Been having various mental health issues and family crises so this chapter took a while to write but I hope you guys like it :)

‘Lou, I don’t think this is a good idea.’

   ‘For fuck’s sake Zayn, I’ve done it for you a thousand fucking times. Please. _Please.’_ The one time Louis actually asks for it and Zayn’s suddenly decided to consider him and Liam exclusive. ‘It’s just sex, you know that.’

   ‘It’s not what you want.’

   ‘Yes. It. Is.’ Louis punctuates every syllable by slamming his hips against those of his friend.

   Zayn sighs. But he kisses him, and Louis feels the tension seep from both their bones at the release, and within seconds they’ve shed their clothes, falling back onto their bed and he tries to make his mind blank, tries so hard not to think about Harry, focuses on the heat and the urgency and Zayn shivering, gasping out _‘Liam, Liam, Liam…’_

   Maybe it’s because he said his name so many times. Maybe he thought he was in danger. Or maybe he’d been looking for him anyway and just so happened to check their house. Whatever it is, during one of the brief moments when Louis opens his eyes, he sees Liam himself hovering above them, his eyes dark hollow holes of hurt.

   ‘Zayn,’ Louis whispers.

   _Zayn,_ Liam mouths. A tear slips down his cheek – and lands on Zayn’s shoulder, where he lies on top of Louis.

   He looks up.

   Louis feels his existence cease to be of relevance to anyone in the world. He blinks and his friend is fully-clothed again, leaving him sprawled out still naked on the bed as he stands and reaches out to the angel frozen still and crying in the air above them. ‘Liam, listen, it’s not, it’s nothing, I swear –’

   ‘It’s him,’ Liam whispers. His voice breaks. ‘You love him.’

   ‘I love _you,_ Liam, please.’ There are tears in Zayn’s throat too, splitting his syllables apart. ‘We need each other, you have to understand, we’re not like you, we’re not pure. We need. But I love you, I love you, I love you.’

   Liam shakes his head blindly, his wings starting to whir. ‘I have to go. I have to. I shouldn’t ever have done this to you. I’m not what you need.’

   ‘No, Liam, _please –’_

   ‘Goodbye,’ he breathes, and then he hurtles skyward.

   In an instant, Zayn’s after him, darting out of the window, out of sight in seconds. Louis throws on his clothes and follows, fearful of what might happen if Liam collides with another demon; if Zayn catches him and they touch; if they disappear for good.

   He catches up to them just as Liam slips back through the border to heaven. Louis’s heart sinks and he slows, expecting Zayn to do the same. But instead, the other boy picks up speed, and before Louis can stop him he’s slamming his body against the barrier, again and again and again, like a shark trying to break through aquarium glass.

   ‘Zayn!’ Louis yells, but he doesn’t stop, doesn’t even look at him, just keeps crashing into the sky with a sound like wood splintering.

   But it’s not the barrier breaking apart. It’s him.

   Eventually, with all his strength, Louis manages to pull him back and Zayn falls to pieces in his arms, his skin all over black and blue bruises and his eyes burning. Louis’s nearly in tears too because he knows that this is all his fault, that he should have listened when Zayn said no the way no one else ever did, and he apologises over and over again as he carries him away from Liam’s domain and back into theirs, back to the ground. ‘I’m sorry, Zayn, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’

   But as soon as the first drops of strength seep back into Zayn’s bones, he shoves him away, hard enough to send him spinning. ‘No,’ he says, quietly. ‘I am. I should have let you be. It’s my fault. It’s my fault that you’re dead and Harry’s dying and I’ve lost him. It’s all my fault.’

  ‘No,’ Louis says helplessly.

   ‘You weren’t supposed to be a demon. It’s who I am, it’s who I always was. I’m damaged and dirty and dark inside.’ He’s barely addressing him anymore. His eyes are glazed over, his voice a monotone, staring at the sea just below their feet. A storm is brewing above their heads and Louis wonders whether God is watching; whether this is a warning. But of what? And to whom?

   ‘Zayn,’ he says slowly. He has this awful, ominous feeling that he’s talking his friend back from a ledge. He imagines a bridge below their feet, Zayn teetering on the broken brink. ‘We can fix it. He’ll come back. He loves you.’

   ‘He’s not supposed to,’ he says softly. He sways slightly, like he’ll topple backwards if he’s not caught.

   ‘Who cares?’ Louis cries. He doesn’t dare move, in case it tips the balance and makes him fall. Rain is beginning to cascade down on their heads, light at first but the flow increasing. It can’t touch them but he feels it all the same, cold and heavy like earth on a coffin. Rain is always a cruel reminder of his own death. So is fire. ‘He does. That’s what matters.’

   ‘You love Harry,’ he retorts. ‘And he loves you.’

   ‘It’s not the same. And this isn’t our story, Zayn, we had ours when we were alive. It’s yours. Don’t leave it. It’s not over yet.’

   His resolve wavers, Louis can sense it. The relief is overwhelming, although the danger’s not yet passed. Zayn looks up at the sky, and Louis thinks maybe he can see him. ‘He’ll come back?’

   ‘Of course he’ll come back,’ Louis murmurs, in the same tone he used to tell his sisters fairytales. This isn’t a fairytale, though. It’s so much harder, because it’s real. ‘You trust him, don’t you?’

   And that’s the dealbreaker. Of course Zayn trusts him. When you’ve died in someone’s arms and they’ve carried you into the afterlife, what choice do you have?

   He lets Louis take his hand, and together they fly away.

 

*

‘Do you know how Liam died?’ Zayn murmurs.

   Louis sighs inwardly. He’s been doing everything he can for the past few days to distract Zayn from Liam, but whenever he lets a moment lapse into silence it’s like all the progress is erased and Zayn is back to square one, with sad stars in his eyes.

   Still, he plays along. It seems to make him a little happier. ‘How?’

  ‘He had cancer. In his kidneys. He always says it was far too slow, but he’s thankful that he had the chance to say goodbye to the people he loved.’ A tear spills from his eye, and Louis’s heart clenches. ‘He said he never wanted to have to say goodbye to anyone again.’

   Louis puts his arm around his friend, and Zayn presses his face into his shoulder.

   He can’t imagine having to say goodbye. He never has. He just left.

   ‘He’ll come back,’ he says, an echo by now.

   But it’s been a week, and Zayn’s started to stop believing him. He can see it in the set of his mouth, and the tear rolling down his cheek. ‘What if he doesn’t?’

   Louis hesitates, trying to think of the right thing to say. ‘Then…you’ll have me.’

   Zayn shakes his head. ‘That’s not the same thing.’

   ‘But it could be.’ Louis presses the pad of his finger under Zayn’s chin, turning his head so he can look him in his beautiful, black-hole eyes. ‘I love you. You love me. We have sex. Maybe we could…’

   Even as he’s saying it though, his heart is screaming Harry’s name like a cry for help. He loves Zayn, of course he does, more than almost anything, but what he has with him is such a different kind of love. It’s rolling, and safe, and rough here and there, like the sea. What he feels for Harry, that’s the sky: every colour, every temperament, every storm and every star and every bolt of sunshine.

   He knows that Zayn can see it. Maybe that’s why he shuts his eyes before he kisses him.

   It’s very different to how they’ve kissed before. There’s no violence or urgency in it; no sense of relieving frustration. It’s sweet, and slow, and sad. Zayn tastes like tears and pieces. Louis wraps both his arms around him, fisting one hand in his hair and the other in his T-shirt, at the small of his back. Zayn gasps slightly at the pull and his hands go to Louis’s waistband, gently tracing his belt.

   There’s nothing wrong with it, or nothing that Louis can explain. It’s nice. Zayn’s always been a good kisser; a good toucher; a good lover. He’s beautiful and funny and smart and golden inside.

   But he’s not Harry. And Louis’s not Liam.

   Zayn pulls away first, his eyes still shut, shaking his head once more. ‘Louis.’ His voice breaks. ‘I can’t.’

   ‘I know,’ Louis whispers. ‘Me too.’

   Then they’re both crying their eyes out, sobbing into each other’s shoulders silently, each grieving for the love they’ve lost and the life they never got the chance to make better.

   They fall asleep like that, in each other’s arms, sticky and sore with tears. Louis dreams about Harry, as he always does. Healthy, happy Harry covered in grass-stains, with sugar on his tongue and diamonds in his wine-gum eyes. Harry when he left him, still half-asleep and soft in his little-boy bed with its Power Rangers sheets, reaching up to give him one last kiss with that ring glinting on his finger. Harry now, dying, and probably looking out the window every night, waiting for him to come back to say goodbye.

   But Louis doesn’t do goodbyes.

   As it turns out, Zayn doesn’t either. When Louis wakes up, he’s already gone.

 

*

Louis searches for him for days. He goes to all their secret places: caves and craters and pockets of land where it snows all year round; islands and abandoned buildings and so deep underwater that the fish are all deformed and glowing; he looks all around the world until even his boundless energy is exhausted, calling his name until his voice cracks like china.

   On the day he knows Zayn has to spend in Hell, he goes down to find him but his cage is empty, and the demons who were expecting his swan song are screeching with rage. Louis is sent to find him, and when he can’t an alert is sent out: a feral demon is loose. Suddenly the sky is alive with angels, looking too.

   Louis sees Liam among them, but when he tries to call out to him the other angels spread their wings, shielding him, as if they think that Louis is a danger instead of his friend. He stills yells, keeps yelling _He loves you, you twat, he loves you!_ but they do not even look down.

   They find him eventually, of course they do. Good always triumphs over evil. They bring him back to Hell and lock him up for a week, and when Louis tries to see him the blind demons are set on him and they nearly scratch him to ribbons before he can get away.

   Still, he’s waiting for him when he’s released, and the second he sees him he hugs him as hard as he possibly can. ‘Jesus, mate, don’t do that to me, what the hell did you think I would do without you, God, don’t ever do that to me again.’

   Zayn wriggles, grunting in pain, and when Louis lets him go and takes a proper look at him, his stomach lurches. He’s got cuts and bruises and burns all over him. His hair is matted and the whites of his eyes have turned yellow. When he tries to talk, nothing comes out but a rasping sound.

   It takes another week before he’s able to talk. Louis waits impatiently, going out every now and then only to bring him back presents: scented candles stolen from windowsills; a love poem some girl dropped in the gutter; a dusty china doll from a junk shop. He wants to surround his friend with beauty so that it will rub off on him. He wants his friend back.

   ‘Liam found me,’ he croaks one day, so suddenly that Louis nearly jumps through the ceiling. ‘He knew where I was, I don’t know how but he did and he tried to hide me but they were coming and…’ A sob rips out of his throat.

   Louis stays very still, waiting for him to finish before he does his hurricane thing and wraps Zayn up in a thousand layers of his love.

   ‘They said Liam was obviously too close to me, that they couldn’t risk him being…corrupted, unclean. They said he’d no longer be allowed to pass between the worlds. He has to stay behind the border forever. A…’ Another sob. ‘Away from me.’

   He buries his face in his hands, trembling all over. He’s so thin and so tense Louis almost doesn’t want to touch him in case he snaps.

   He doesn’t want to touch him because it’s all his fault. Did he want Zayn to fuck him that day because he needed him…or because he was jealous that in that moment, Liam seemed closer to Zayn than Harry could ever be to him again?

   Did he do this on purpose? Are demons just inherently evil after all?

   No, he can’t blame his form. He was always like this. He walked out on his family, on the only person who’d ever loved him. He cracked his heart in two. He killed him.

   And now he’s destroyed Zayn. Destroyed everything.

   His hands shaking, he gives Zayn’s forehead a soft kiss, promising that he’ll be right back.

  He’s not leaving him. Even in this state, he can see that would only make things worse.

   He just has to see Harry one last time. To apologise for destroying him too. To wash the blood off his hands, as best he can.

   To fulfil his promise to be there when he dies.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you like this bit :) I'm thinking of making a playlist as well since it's basically the product of listening to a lot of sad songs...enjoy!

When Louis gets to the window of the hospital, the sight that meets him nearly knocks him backwards. Niall is sitting by Harry’s bed, swollen-eyed and grey-faced. Harry looks asleep; his eyes shut and his breathing shallow – but he’s still managing to clutch his hand so tightly that both of their knuckles are white.

   Louis watches them for twenty minutes, just hovering in shock because he can’t believe that he forgot about Niall.

   Looking at him in the light that Harry’s painted him, he can sort of see himself there, in Niall’s blue eyes and gold-tinged skin and the way he smiles slightly when Harry murmurs something in his sleep. It makes Louis’s fists clench, how easy it was for Harry to replace him, even though he knows that’s not what it was.

   When Niall stands, kisses Harry’s temple, and walks out of the door, Louis follows. He’s not sure why. He wants to know how Niall lives without Harry; whether his life will be as empty as Louis’s when Harry is gone.

   As soon as he’s out of the hospital, he takes a phone out of the pocket of his denim jacket (he’s blue denim all over, and Louis can’t help thinking cattily that he looks like he’s robbed a thrift shop) and presses a speed dial key. ‘Hey,’ he says, and he sounds exhausted but a little more at peace. ‘Yeah, I just left. I’ll be back soon. Bye.’

   Louis frowns to himself, and keeps following. He remembers what Liam said about the helpful notes Harry apparently left everywhere, and wonders if Niall’s called in some cousin or mutual friend to help him with the cooking.

   Niall stops once on his way back, to pick up a bottle of wine. Harry always hated wine, Louis remembers. He said it tasted like drinking straight gravy. Irrationally, he hates Niall for using Harry’s illness as an excuse to indulge in something he hates. Who the fuck buys wine when their boyfriend is a few days from death?

   But he forgets that particular anger five minutes later when Niall enters his flat and heads straight for the kitchen, and into the arms of some chiselled, tattooed guy who’s standing at the stove cooking bacon.

   _‘God,’_ Niall exhales into the other man’s shoulder. ‘I can’t fucking stand it.’

   ‘I know,’ he murmurs, stroking his back soothingly. ‘But it’ll be over soon.’

   And then – Louis sees so much red it’s like his eyes are bleeding – he tilts his head up and kisses him on the mouth, deep and slow and passionate.

   Louis wants to leave, but he can’t. He’s frozen in the air, watching Harry’s world crumble to dust yet again. The Post-Its, he sees, have been ripped from the surfaces, leaving tiny sticky marks like fingerprints.

   When Niall finally pulls away, his eyes are wet. If Louis wasn’t so seething, ragingly furious, he might feel sorry for him. ‘God,’ he repeats, and this time his voice is as tense as a coiled spring. ‘What am I doing?’

   ‘Living your life,’ the guy says quietly, tracing Niall’s jawline gently with his thumb. ‘You can’t die just because he is.’

   ‘I’m a disgusting person,’ Niall whispers.

   _Yes,_ Louis thinks fiercely. _You are._

   ‘No,’ the guy replies firmly, wrapping his hands around Niall’s forearms. ‘You are the best person I’ve ever known. You gave him everything. Now I want to give you everything back.’

   _He’s dying._

   ‘He’s dying.’ Niall’s hands are shaking. ‘I love him, but…’

   The guy pulls him closer, brushing his lips against Niall’s ear. ‘But angels can’t love you back. I can. I do.’

   Niall starts crying, but he’s already kissing him, scooping him up and carrying him to the bedroom while the bacon burns behind them.

   This time, Louis doesn’t follow. He considers going to a petrol station, siphoning a few drops of gasoline and throwing it into the frying pan, watching them burn alive so they know how it feels to die too – but he doesn’t.

   Instead, he finds the handle for the burner and turns the heat off. Then he waves the smoke away before it can set off the alarm. Then he leaves.

   What can he say? He doesn’t feel like starting a fire tonight. Besides, the other guy was right about one thing. Angels can’t love you back.

   And maybe, just maybe, Niall should still get a shot at happiness.

   God knows, if Louis had one, he’d take it.

 

*

Harry is still asleep when Louis slips back through the window. He’s wearing an old grey sweatshirt and his hair’s been pushed back off his face. Gently, Louis combs his fringe back into place, and the movement makes his eyes jolt open, glistening green. When he sees who it is, they fill with startling, sparkling tears. ‘Did you come back? Is it you? Did you come back?’

   ‘Yeah,’ Louis whispers, slotting himself into the bed beside the shiny-eyed boy. There’s plenty of space to spare even if he were solid: Harry’s skin and bones. ‘I’m here.’

   Harry’s eyes close, and his breathing shudders in relief. ‘I thought you wouldn’t but…I couldn’t…leave, without seeing you again.’

   Louis’s heart aches. Harry’s been holding on all this time, for him. ‘You can let go now, love,’ he murmurs, his voice thick and cracking. ‘If you want. I’m here. I’ve got you. You can let go.’

   But Harry opens his eyes again, and just looks at him, his mouth curving into the smallest, sweetest of smiles. ‘Not yet,’ he breathes, and the tears spill over, sparkling like diamonds in the moonlight. ‘Just a little longer.’

   Louis feels like his chest is about to either cave in, or burst. There’s not enough space inside him for so much sorrow. He can’t take it.

   But he has to. For Harry, who’s suffered so long waiting for him. He owes him this. Just a little longer, just a little more love. He kisses his damp cheek. ‘As long as you need, love. As long as you need.’

   As Harry sighs, and settles into him as best as he can, Louis wonders whether he should tell him about Niall. He doesn’t believe that Harry would begrudge someone he loves a body to hold at night – is what Niall doing really so different from what they are? – but he can’t bear to break his heart again.

   ‘I’ll find a way,’ Harry whispers, nearly making him jump out of the bed. He’s looking up at him again, his eyes huge and faded like cloth. ‘I’ll find a way to be with you.’

   ‘Ssh,’ Louis soothes, ghosting his transparent fingertips along the younger boy’s back. He swallows hard to stop the tears filling his throat. ‘Don’t think about that now.’

   ‘I have to,’ Harry says, as if Louis hadn’t spoken. He’s not blinking. His eyes are wet now. ‘I don’t want to live without you.’

   ‘But you did,’ Louis tells him, ignoring the fact that he started dying the second Louis left the world. ‘And you can. And you have to.’

   ‘No.’ His voice comes out in a croak now. He screws up his face, his fists clenching. ‘That’s not fair. I can’t. I _won’t.’_

‘Harry –’

   _‘No!’_ he suddenly screams, shoving a full glass of water off of the table by his bed. The movement rips out some of the wires in his arms and Louis immediately scrambles for them, trying to slot them back in although his panic makes him even less substantial and they slip right through his hands. Even if they didn’t, Harry’s thrashing too hard to let him. ‘Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me…’

   Louis knows that he means _from you_ but the nurses who come and hold him down and inject him with a drug to subdue him, they think he means _from this life, from this body, from this world,_ and after he’s been stung into sleep two of them stay, a woman and a man, and look at him. He sees tears in their eyes too.

   ‘Poor love,’ the woman murmurs. ‘At least it’ll be over for him soon.’

   But it won’t, Louis thinks, his heart feeling like it might split in two. They’ll just end up like Zayn and Liam. Always apart, always in love, never absolved.

   But he doesn’t run from it. He still stays, and he still holds him, and sings their old songs, and when Harry wakes up in the morning he kisses his lips, soft and small.

   ‘Can we agree,’ he says slowly, ‘to take the time we have, and not do anything to fuck it up, and then just call it a happy memory when you go?’

   Harry smiles, but he shakes his head. ‘No. I’ll find a way, Lou. I’ll find it.’

   ‘Harry,’ Louis says quietly. ‘I break everything I touch.’ His eyes are stinging and he blinks hard, willing back his own tears. ‘I broke you.’

   ‘You made me whole,’ Harry whispers back. ‘You can’t wrap duct tape around something to fix it then blame the tape if it doesn’t stay fixed when it gets ripped away.’

   ‘You weren’t broken when I met you.’

   ‘Yes. I was. I was broken because I didn’t have you.’ He takes in a deep breath although his chest heaves like he can hardly hold it, his bones creaking like old metal. ‘Didn’t you feel it? There was something missing, before we met. Here.’ He taps his chest. ‘A space. No, a _tug._ And when I saw you…a piece fell into place. Like a lock clicking.’ His voice cracks. ‘When you left, the pain wasn’t new. It was just worse because I knew what it felt like to be whole.’

   Louis doesn’t know what to say. He’d known. He’d just never been able to put it into words.

   The words come before he can stop them. ‘Liam, a…an angel, my friend. He told me that people have bonds. Like threads that connect us. And the colours dictate the type of relationship we have.’

   Harry gazes up at him, fascinated. His lip is trembling. Louis doesn’t know if he’s sad, or scared. ‘OK?’

   Louis wants to stop talking, knows he’s digging too deep, but he can’t. He has to get it out. And he has to let Harry know that he’s not wrong. That he’s not the only one who felt it. ‘He said ours is gold. It’s the rarest kind, the kind only people who are meant to be together their entire lives can ever share.’ He rests his forehead gently against Harry’s, inhaling him while he still can, wondering if he can hear the music too; if Zayn or Liam can. ‘Other bonds, they break with distance or time or bad emotions. Gold ones can’t. If they do…’ And here he bites his tongue, because if he tells Harry the story of the angel and the demon he doesn’t know what he’ll do, but he’ll never agree to die quietly here in this bed and become an angel. He has to keep him safe. That is all that matters, even if it drains every single scrap of light out of the living world. ‘They just don’t. He presses his finger to Harry’s chest too. ‘We’ll always have it. Even when you die. It’ll be there.’

   He’s lying through his teeth and it’s like swallowing straight syrup. It sticks in his throat and coats his tongue like fur. By the time Harry finds him out, though, it will be too late for him to do anything about it. That’s what matters. That is all that matters.

   And, for the moment, he seems to accept it, smiling as he lies back a little. ‘So I’ll never really be gone. We’ll always find each other.’

   ‘Always,’ Louis says, and he can taste dirt and sugar, so strong he wants to spit.

 

*

_‘Right now I wish you were here with me_

_Cos right now everything is new to me_

_You know I can’t fight the feeling, and every night I feel it…’_

   Louis is happy that Zayn is singing again, even if the songs are desperately sad. It shows that he’s feeling a bit more human. Liam always said music was proof of the existence of the soul. Louis’s not sure about that, but he loves Zayn’s voice. He thinks his high notes alone should have been enough to qualify him to be an angel.

   ‘Did you go to Harry?’ he asks, laying his head sleepily in Louis’s lap.

   ‘Yeah. I told him about the thread.’

   Zayn frowns, but doesn’t sit up. He’s not been moving much lately. He’s never been exactly energetic but now he barely seems to have the strength to breathe. ‘What did he say?’

   ‘I lied.’ Louis feels a tear slip down his face. ‘I told him it wouldn’t break when he dies. I said it so he wouldn’t try to do something stupid to be with me.’

   ‘If he wants to be with you then why not let him?’

   ‘Zayn, it’s hard enough seeing you suffer in Hell. I couldn’t let that happen to him.’

   He stares blankly past Louis’s face, up at the sky (they’re in the middle of the ocean, the other side of the world from Harry, and millions of stars reflect off the water, through them, so it looks like their skin is made of sequins and silver beads). ‘You know something? I’d take ten times as many hours in Hell if I could spend the rest of them with Liam.’

   ‘And I wouldn’t let you take that deal even if it was on the table.’

   He sighs, and his eyes flutter shut. ‘Have you ever considered the possibility that you’re too protective?’

   ‘When you had five little siblings and the only serious relationship of your life was with a teenager two years younger than you, it’s a trait you pick up.’

   ‘You call it a trait; I call it a neurosis. Tell the kid the truth and let him decide what he wants.’

   ‘And what if he chooses wrong?’ Louis snaps. ‘Chooses me and spends the rest of eternity regretting it?’

   ‘Why would he do that?’

   ‘Because…’ His chest clenches. ‘I’m not the person I was when I was with him. I’m harder. I hate. There’s anger in me.’

   ‘You think all that doesn’t apply to him too? It’s a basic side effect of dying, mate. He’s not fifteen anymore. He’s going to die either way. You might as well let him go out on his own terms.’

   Louis sighs, and with his exhalation a shooting star streaks across the sky. He wonders if there’s a correlation; if the act of him continuing to exist is now killing stars on top of everything else. With the life – and death – he’s had, it would make sense. ‘OK. I’ll tell him the truth. I’ll let him choose.’

   Zayn smiles, for the first time in as long as Louis can remember. ‘Good. Just don’t forget me when you have him, OK, mate?’

   Louis sits him up, throws his arms around him and hugs him just as hard as he possible can. ‘Never,’ he says fervently. ‘Never.’

   Zayn half-dozes off a little later, curled into Louis’s chest. Louis keeps staring at the sky, wondering at this new universe of possibilities that Zayn’s just opened up. He’s going to give Harry a chance to choose him. Harry might take it. Hell, Harry probably _will_ take it. He’ll come here and live with them forever and they can be happy and young and beautiful and they’ll be able to _touch,_ God, his blood is warming just to think about it. He’ll have him. The thread won’t need to break. It will be like he never left.

   It will be like being alive again.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so the next chapter will be the last one! to those of you who've read the whole thing so far, i love you and you're awesome, i hope you enjoy this next part :)

Louis’s surprised that Zayn agrees to come with him to see Harry. He’s angry at himself for even asking, knowing it’s not fair to make his broken hearted friend watch his happy ending, but he knows that if he goes it alone he won’t be able to make himself go through with it. If Zayn seemed at all hesitant he wouldn’t have pushed it, but his friend agrees without so much as a second thought.

   Louis will wonder later if some sixth sense lurking in Zayn’s brilliant brain somehow knew what was going to happen.

   What happens is that, halfway across the continent, they hear the unmistakeable sound of an angel screaming.

   It is not an infrequent occurrence for them, but Louis can’t recall it happening since the time he and Liam had to watch a feral demon rip an angel’s throat out. Even now, if Louis were alone, he wouldn’t act. He would look away and block his ears and journey on. It can’t be Liam, he would say to himself, and so what does it matter?

   It’s Zayn who goes careering off course as soon as the first decibels hit their ears, faster than a bullet on ecstasy, towards the source of the sound.

   ‘Zayn!’ Louis bellows after him, certain he’s gone completely nuts. Getting in between a demon and its kill is dangerous, and more than that it’s pointless. Since when do he and Zayn care about other people?

   There’s a sharp tug on the strings of his heart. _Harry would want you to save them. Whoever they were. Just like Zayn knows Liam would want him to._

   ‘For fuck’s sake,’ he mutters, wondering how many times Zayn will be the death of him before he’ll stop trusting him, and then shoots across the sky straight after him.

   The angel, a girl a couple of years younger than them, is already bleeding where the demon’s claws have caught her face and sides. Lucky for her, though, it’s fresh out of Hell and half-blind from the sunlight, its aim clumsy and wide.

   Zayn doesn’t even stop for a second to take stock of the situation. He dives straight in and Louis follows, because no way is he letting anyone take Zayn from him.

   The demon snarls at them, warning them away, obviously assuming they’re trying to take the credit for his kill. The angel screams even louder, thinking they’re reinforcements, and that would be enough for Louis to leave her to it even if it had been his idea to rescue her in the first place, but not Zayn. He lashes out at the other demon, his teeth bared, wilder than Louis’s ever seen him. _‘Leave,’_ he snarls, _‘or we will kill you.’_

The angel tries to take the opportunity to scramble away, but the other demon immediately leaps at her, pinning her in place, before looking back at Zayn, its lip curling. _‘I know you. You’re the one, the one who…_ fell in love.’

   The angel’s eyes widen, and Louis wonders if she knows Liam. If she knows the truth. Or if she’s just terrified.

   _‘Yeah, I am,’_ Zayn growls. _‘And I protect the angels.’_

_‘Traitor.’_

_‘Let her go.’_

The demon smirks. Then he opens his mouth, showing a set of sharpened, shining teeth, and darts down to bite into the angel’s neck.

   Zayn moves forward – but Louis gets there first. Because in that split-second the girl looks up at him and her eyes are green, wine-gum green, Harry green.

   He comes at the demon feet-first, kicking him square in the chest. He stumbles backwards and then Louis and Zayn fall upon him, clawing and biting and snarling until he shrieks his defeat and shrinks away, retreating a few miles before hurling himself into the sea.

   Louis looks back, assuming that the angel has bolted. But she’s just hovering there in the sky, staring at them in wonder with her mouth open. ‘You,’ she whispers, ‘you saved me.’

   Zayn shakes his head, and his voice comes out rough and ragged. ‘I was trying to save me. Whatever sorry excuse I have for a soul.’ He looks up. ‘I did it for him. So I’d have a soul to give him.’

   She reaches out to take his hand – then rethinks and withdraws it. Her eyes are sparkling, and Louis thinks of Harry and tugs Zayn’s sleeve. ‘We have to go. Niall might be back soon.’

   ‘No, wait,’ she calls desperately. ‘No one’s ever done what you did just now. No demon has ever saved an angel.’

   ‘Well congratulations,’ Louis snaps, already twitching to get away. ‘You’ve got a good story to tell your friends.’

   _‘Wait,’_ she repeats, and this time she only addresses Zayn. ‘I can help you. If I tell them what you’ve done…they might let you see him again.’

   Zayn freezes. Louis wants to scream _she’s fucking lying, mate, as if anyone cares what we do, they’re all the same, they all just want to fuck us around,_ but he suddenly looks so _happy,_ like the light’s come back into his eyes. So he stays, although the soles of his feet are burning.

   ‘Really?’ Zayn whispers.

   She inclines her head. ‘Come with me.’

   If this turns out to be false hope, Louis thinks fiercely as he takes Zayn’s hand, he’ll kill her himself. To hell with all their souls.

 

*

The angel guides them to the border, then tells them to wait while she slips through it, promising to return with someone who can help them the way they have helped her.

   Zayn’s shaking all over, his teeth sunk into his lip.

   Louis leans gently against him. ‘That was brave, what you did. And good.’

   Zayn shakes his head. A tear shines in his eye. ‘It was selfish. I did it for him.’

   ‘So what? Maybe everyone needs a reason to be good. It’s not your fault you never had one while you were alive.’

   The tear spills, and his lovely face crumples slightly. ‘I love him so much. Too much. I would have killed for him if that was what he wanted.’

   ‘If that was what he wanted,’ Louis says softly, ‘you wouldn’t love him.’

   Zayn nods, breathing in deep and drawing himself up to his full height. The fading sun holds him in its arms and he’s glorious, more beautiful and pure than any angel.

   The real angel comes back, bringing with her a man who looks to be in his thirties, wearing a white robe, his wings on full display. Louis recognises him as a guardian: the angels who decide the fates of dying souls; direct descendants of God. Automatically, his hackles rise. This man’s kind condemned Zayn to suffer. No good can come of this.

   The angel must sense both of their trepidation, because he reaches out and rests his hands on their shoulders. Instantly, the tension seeps out of Louis’s muscles. He tries to fight it but it’s like resisting the pull of sleep. A strange contentment comes over him. The angel has calmed him, with a single touch.

   Louis has never been touched by an angel.

   ‘Peace, children,’ the man murmurs. ‘No harm will come to you here. Sarah told me of your bravery; your kindness. Never has a demon been known to save an angel.’

   Zayn shrugs, clearly as uncomfortable with the praise as Louis is. And determined. He has not forgotten what he wants. ‘I don’t need your words. Let me see him.’

   The angel smiles. ‘I can do more than that. For your selfless act, you will both get one favour granted to you. Anything in the world, even beyond the border. If you wish, we will allow you into Heaven. You can be an angel.’

   Zayn staggers: Louis has to grip his arm to stop him tumbling from the sky. His heart is in his mouth. Anything he wants. He could be an angel. He wouldn’t have to ask anything of Harry. All four of them could be together…

   But even as he thinks it, he knows that it is not what he will ask for. _Anything in the world._ The favour he will ask will be for Harry’s sake, not for his. No one should have to die young. Everybody deserves a second chance at life. ‘I need you to save someone,’ he blurts out. ‘A human. He’s dying; his heart doesn’t work. I need him to live. I need him healed.’

   Zayn gapes at him. ‘Louis…’

   ‘He needs to live,’ Louis says firmly. He squeezes Zayn’s wrist. ‘Go be with Liam.’

   ‘Louis, _no.’_

   ‘I can’t let him die if he doesn’t have to.’

   ‘I’m not leaving you. I won’t.’

   It’s Louis’s turn to gape. _‘What?_ But Liam –’

   ‘You’re my best friend. I won’t leave you here alone. I won’t go past that border without you.’ He turns back to the angel. ‘My favour. Grant it to Liam instead. Tell him he can do whatever he wants with it, but he can’t make me an angel. I’m staying here.’

   Louis’s heart is in a vice. ‘Don’t do this. Not for me.’

   ‘You are my best friend,’ he repeats, low and firm. ‘I put you here. It’s my fault that this happened. If I have to suffer too, so be it.’

   ‘Zayn, _please –’_

   He grabs him, hugs him tight, and Louis feels the tears as they escape from both of them, soaking into each other’s shoulders.

   When they break away, both of the angels look confused beyond comprehension, like they literally can’t believe what they are seeing.

   ‘You’re not…’ the female angel says slowly, swallows, then begins again. ‘You’re not using your wishes for yourselves?’

   ‘No,’ Zayn says simply. ‘We’ve decided. Make Harry better, and give Liam mine.’ He bows his head slightly. ‘Thank you. Be careful,’ he says to the girl.

   Then he and Louis fly away, hands still clasped, back to their house, where they skateboard down rickety banisters for hours, settling back into their old life for good.

   ‘I’m sorry,’ Louis whispers that night, while they spoon on their favourite island under the stars.

   ‘I love you,’ Zayn tells him. ‘You’re enough, you know. And what you did for Harry…he’ll know. He’ll always love you for it. And maybe…when he dies…’

   Louis shakes his head. ‘He’ll grow old. He’ll find someone else.’

   Zayn hesitates. ‘And…the thread?’

   ‘Maybe it doesn’t mean anything,’ Louis says quietly. ‘Maybe what Liam told us was just a myth. Maybe they just relate to how well we fit together, not the necessity of it.’

   ‘Maybe,’ Zayn murmurs. ‘Maybe Liam and I wouldn’t have worked out anyway. Maybe he only wanted me because I wasn’t like him.’

   ‘Do you really believe that?’

   They both nearly jump out of their skin. They look up – and there’s Liam, hovering above them, his usual sweet smile on his chiselled face.

   But he’s different somehow.

   Zayn realises it first. ‘Liam…your halo.’

   It’s gone.

   He looks down at himself, then back up, with a grin that’s almost sheepish. ‘You gave me your favour. You said I couldn’t use it on the thing I wanted most, so I took the next best thing. I made myself a demon.’

   Zayn looks completely dazed. There are diamonds in his eyes. He reaches out, and Liam does the same, so their fingers are just brushing.

   ‘You…’ he breathes, in wonder. ‘You did that…for me?’

   Liam smiles, and there’s so much raw, concentrated love there that Louis almost has to look away. ‘I love you, Zayn,’ he says, and it sounds like a prayer. ‘A thousand times more than my halo.’

   Something seems to break inside them both. Zayn throws himself at Liam, and then they’re wrapped around each other and kissing as if the world is crumbling around their ears, tumbling each other over and over and over in the air, moaning into each other’s mouths, their hands somehow everywhere at once.

   Louis doesn’t watch. He blows them an amiable kiss, and then he dives alone into the dark, salty sea. Its depth somehow makes his own selfish sadness seem more bearable.

 

*

The three of them settle into a life not unlike Zayn and Louis’s old one. Louis still goes out and brings back gifts, and they still travel to their favourite places, and Zayn still sings. But Liam’s presence seems to bring a little more light to their world. Somehow, he even persuaded the guardians to allow Zayn complete freedom from Hell before he transformed. They’re happy together. The lyrics of Zayn’s songs are no longer painful. Now that he and Liam can touch, they no longer have to pine. Louis can relax, knowing that his friend is safe in someone else’s love.

   But, try as he might, Louis cannot be happy in himself. Whenever he’s alone, he thinks about Harry. He finds himself picking up turquoise pebbles and green glass bottles and hoarding them because they remind him of his eyes. He stares into the sun until all he can see is white light, because it’s a blank canvas on which to project Harry’s face. Whenever Zayn and Liam touch, he averts his eyes, because it makes his chest ache with an intolerable envy.

   He doesn’t go back to check on Harry. Liam does of his own accord, and assures him that he is indeed well. Apparently he’s left Niall and now lives on his own, working for some hipster photography magazine. That’s all that Liam will say – but one night when Louis returns to their house, sees Zayn and Liam lying in bed and doesn’t make his presence known, hovering above in the attic, he hears his name.

   ‘I won’t tell Louis, I promise. But God, it’s hard, Zayn. He says his name in his sleep. He _sobs_ it. He wakes up but he keeps crying. They gave him a new heart, but they still couldn’t unbreak it.’

   ‘That poor kid,’ Zayn says sadly. ‘I wish there was something we could do. But he wouldn’t even be able to see Louis anymore, would he?’

   ‘No,’ Liam replies, and his voice sounds close to breaking. ‘He could only see him when he was dying.’

   ‘Well,’ Zayn says, half-hopefully. ‘He might still die.’

   Liam just sighs, and Louis hears the faint rustle of fabric as he presumably pulls Zayn still closer into him. ‘It scares me how lucky I am to have you, you know. I’ll spend the rest of eternity thinking you won’t be here when I open my eyes.’

   ‘Me too,’ Zayn replies softly. ‘But I always will.’

   The sweet, small sound of a kiss. ‘Me too.’

   Louis goes back to the sea. He spends a lot of time there now. It’s the only place where he doesn’t have to admit to himself that he’s crying.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last chapter! thank you all of you so much for reading/liking/commenting, and let me know if you like it!  
> also i made a playlist yay, and you should definitely check it out if you want to know what i was listening to when i wrote this http://8tracks.com/kiki-d/fall-into-your-sunlight

Zayn used to think he knew what happiness was. When he was a child, playing hopscotch between the pastel chalk lines on the street with his handful of friends. Being the head of the debating team, smacking his opposition down with wit and alliteration. Chasing waves with Louis while Liam looked on, set apart but smiling.

   But this, this is beyond anything he’s ever felt. Liam is _his._ They can _touch,_ and now that they can they never stop, never more than a blink away from jumping each other’s bones, and life is so fucking beautiful he worries that one day he’ll wake up blind from sheer exposure to light.

   It takes him a shamefully long time to realise how unhappy Louis still is. In fact, it’s Liam who points it out, one night while they’re floating on the surface of the sea while Louis darts about like a saltwater fish thirty feet below, surfacing sporadically to hand Zayn an ancient coin or a lobster claw.

   ‘We have to help him.’

   Zayn blinks himself out of his reverie for what feels like the first time in years. ‘Who?’

   Liam gives him a strange look. ‘Louis? Like, your best friend in the world?’

   ‘Oh.’ Pause. ‘We do?’

   Liam sighs, but he still gives Zayn a quick kiss before continuing. ‘I love you, and you’re kind of an idiot. He’s miserable. He misses Harry like crazy.’

   Zayn’s chest squeezes. Maybe there’s another reason he’s kept himself unaware of Louis’s heartache. He’s never been able to absolve himself of the blame. It’s his fault that Louis is no longer alive. It’s his fault he lost Harry.

   Liam reads his expression, and kisses him again. ‘Listen to me, babe. What you did for Louis, that wasn’t a bad thing. He might never have met Harry again anyway. You have to stop taking responsibility for this situation. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do.’

   ‘But there isn’t anything we can do,’ Zayn points out reasonably. ‘Louis had a chance to get what he wanted. He chose to save Harry’s life.’

   ‘He chose _wrong,’_ Liam says bluntly. ‘I’ve been checking in on Harry and, God, Zayn, he’s wandering around like a ghost. He thinks he’s losing his mind. He’s in therapy, but what’s a psych going to say to _the ghost of my dead boyfriend came back to haunt me while I was dying, then disappeared the second I got better?_ Louis thought he was doing the right thing, but he wasn’t. And as a former angel, I think I have the authority on the right thing.’

   Zayn rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t disagree. However, there are crucial details that Liam seems to have deliberately omitted. ‘And how do you propose we fix this?’

   Liam scrunches his eyes up slightly, like he’s worried that Zayn will refuse his idea (as if Zayn would refuse him anything, please). ‘We can do for him,’ he says slowly, ‘what you did for Louis.’

   For a moment, Zayn doesn’t understand. Then Liam’s meaning hits him and all he can do is stare at him with his mouth hanging wide open.

   For a former angel, Liam is really taking to the spirit of being a demon.

  It’s a while before he can speak. Liam waits patiently, gnawing his lip a little, and when Zayn does eventually find the words to reply his relief is instantaneous and obvious. ‘OK. If you think that’s what we need to do, then that’s what we ‘ll do.’

   Liam lights up, and Zayn tries not to think about how morbid this whole thing is. In fairness, they are dead. ‘I’m glad you think so.’

   ‘Louis will take some convincing.’

   Liam’s eyes widen. ‘Umm. You were planning on telling him? I sort of figured Harry could just…show up. Like a surprise.’

   ‘A surprise,’ Zayn repeats flatly. ‘A surprise murdered boyfriend.’

   He sighs. ‘Well, when you put it like that. But you know he’ll never agree. I think it’s all we can really do.’ He squeezes Zayn’s hand tight. ‘Are you up for it?’

   Zayn doesn’t have to think about it. Louis may hate them forever when he finds out, but at least – even if he won’t admit it – he’ll be happy. ‘One hundred percent. Let’s go’ – at the last minute, he decides not to say ‘kill’ – ‘bring home Louis’s boyfriend.’

   And that’s all they’re really doing, he thinks as they soar away. Bringing him home.

 

*

When Harry gets hit by a car, his one thought before the lights go out is that he’s surprised it hasn’t happened sooner. He’s essentially been walking around with his eyes shut for weeks, ever since he got better and Louis left him. Again.

   When he wakes up, he’s still lying on the ground and for a moment he thinks he’s still alive – except that there’s a girl kneeling beside him, a beautiful girl with toffee skin and caramel eyes. ‘Hey sweetheart,’ she says softly. ‘I’m here to collect you.’

   She takes his hand, and – he doesn’t even have the wherewithal to find it odd – pulls him out of his body. As they float away, his feet flailing uncertainly in the empty air while she grips his arm, he looks down at the car and is surprised to see that there’s no one behind the wheel. As if it started moving by itself. What are the odds?

   ‘I’ll take him from here, Jade,’ says a boy with nail-gun arms and eyes like melted chocolate who’s just materialised in front of them. There’s another boy beside him who Harry, after blinking a few more times, recognises as Zayn, the boy Louis brought to the hospital, his best friend.

   His best friend who is dead.

   The shock starts to fade, and the clarity sets in. He’s dead. He got hit by a car and now he’s dead.

   The girl shrugs and evaporates, and then he’s being held in a strong hug by nail-gun boy while Zayn chews his lip a little sheepishly beside them.

   As soon as he finds his feet in this new atmosphere though, Harry pulls away, addressing Zayn because he’s the only thing about this situation that Harry recognises. ‘Am I dead?’

   He nods, his eyebrows knitting together worriedly. ‘Yeah. I mean, it’s a little…we sort of killed you.’

   ‘You what?’

   ‘The roads were icy,’ Liam interjects, looking just as concerned. ‘We just gave a parked car a push and you weren’t looking where you were going anyway so…’

   ‘You’re dead,’ Zayn finishes. Harry notices that they’re holding hands.

   ‘I’m dead,’ he repeats. His chest feels strange. His heart isn’t beating anymore, which he’s very aware of because he feels like it should be starting into overdrive at this news. He’s _dead._ He’s not _alive_ anymore.

   ‘Am I an angel?’

   Zayn snorts. ‘Sorry. Heaven is reserved for people who God kills. We were your divine intervention so you get to hang with us for the rest of eternity. There’s a bright side though. Come on.’

   Harry is having trouble processing all this information, so he really can’t be blamed for not twigging where they’re taking him; who they’re taking him to, when Liam picks him up in a piggyback, still clutching Zayn, and they zip away from the scene, skipping across continents Harry doesn’t even have time to count, past sunsets and stars and twilights before coming to rest on a small, grassy island where the sun hangs low in the sky and shy flowers bloom at the sandy edges.

   Where Louis is lying, eyes closed, hands behind his head, half-asleep and murmuring _Harry…Harry…Harry…_

   _‘Oh,’_ Harry breathes.

   Liam shrugs him off his back, keeping a grip on him in case he falls out of the sky. He and Zayn are both grinning like idiots. ‘There’s your bright side, mate. Come on Zayn, let’s leave them to it.’

   Then they’re gone, leaving Harry alone.

   Not alone. With Louis.

   _Louis._

   ‘Louis?’ he whispers.

   Louis starts, his eyes flying open, Harry’s name still on his lips – but when he sees him there he shuts his eyes again, shakes his head three times, and when he looks back at him his expression is almost suspicious. ‘Who are you?’

   ‘I’m…’ Harry’s voice almost breaks. Does he look different? Or is it just that Louis doesn’t believe he can be here? ‘I’m Harry.’

   ‘No,’ Louis murmurs.

   ‘Yeah,’ Harry says softly. ‘I’m here. I told you I’d find a way.’

   (never mind that it was more Zayn and his boyfriend who found a way, but he supposes they can discuss the semantics later)

   Louis shakes his head again. ‘But I…I saved you.’

   Harry lets himself drift closer, until he’s just an arm’s breadth away from touching the boy he’s been in love with since he was fifteen. The boy he’s loved across countries and afterlives; the boy he can finally touch again. ‘Louis,’ he murmurs, and then he’s cupping Louis’s jaw and God he’s _warm_ and _soft_ and _solid,_ it’s like seeing in colour again, ‘do us both a favour and never try to save me again.’

   He doesn’t let Louis answer before he’s kissing him, hard and messy and fervent, already ripping at his clothes and tugging gently at his hair, laying him down and licking into him everywhere he can reach.

   It’s like waking up. It’s like seeing the sun. It’s like finally, _finally,_ being alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *on a serious note*  
> okay so i just felt it important to clarify given the subject matter that my intent here is in no way to glorify death. personally i don't believe in god or afterlives or angels, i just wanted to write a story about it. but yeah, generally i absolutely do not advocate suicide and certainly not murder. these are not solutions to real life problems. just wanted to clear that up.


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